Travel City Direct

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Travel City Direct's TF-AME seen at Manchester Airport
Travel City Direct's TF-AME seen at Manchester Airport

Travel City Direct is a British holiday company based in Swansea and specialise in holidays to the United States. The company is owned by the 3rd largest tour operator in the United Kingdom, the XL Leisure Group.

Travel City Direct operates year round to Orlando Sanford International Airport from its bases at Manchester Airport and London Gatwick Airport. During the summer season they operate up to 16 flights a week with additional departures from Glasgow International Airport and Cardiff International Airport.

Travel City Direct currently operates one Boeing 767 and one Airbus A330 aircraft operated by XL Airways. These aircraft are due to be replaced with new Airbus A330's from late 2008. These aircraft are to be fitted in a two class configuration with seat back televisions.

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[edit] XL Airways France

XL Airways France, part of XL Airways, are operating the Airbus A330 aircraft for Travel City Direct. Due to the XL France lease of an Airbus A330-300 from Iberworld, some Travel City Direct Manchester flights are being operated in Iberworld aircraft, this is due to last until sometime between June and July.

[edit] Destinations

[edit] Former Fleet

Travel City Direct formerly used 2 Boeing 747-300 aircraft, TF-AME and TF-AMJ, both were leased from Air Atlanta Icelandic and were returned in 2007. Both aircraft were originally Singapore Airlines' (as N121KG[1] and N119KE[2], respectively) before they were bought by French airline Corsair. Later, the two aircraft were bought by Air Atlanta Icelandic and were wet leased to Travel City Direct between 2005-2007 to replace the Boeing 747-200s that were sold off after Air Atlanta Icelandic's Air Atlanta Europe subsidiary was absorbed into XL Airways. Corsair Design patterns were still found inside TF-AMJ during the time that the aircraft was operated by Travel City Direct. Toilet signs and instructions were also still in French and English, obviously unchanged by Air Atlanta when they bought the aircraft from Corsair.

[edit] Boeing 747-300 Fleet History

TF-AME was delivered to Singapore Airlines on 30th October 1984 as N121KG, it was never registered in Singapore. It was then passed to Corsair on 21st August 1997 and re-registered F-GSEA, which was one of Corsair's three 'pictured' Boeing 747-300, due to the registration, it was called 'Sea' and painted with a sign of the sea, hence F-GSEA. The aircraft was then sold to Air Atlanta Icelandic and registered TF-AME on the 15th December 2004, it was then leased to Travel City Direct on 17th March 2005 , then it was passed on to XL Airways on 28th July 2007 and back to Air Atlanta Icelandic on the 16th November 2007.

TF-AMJ was delivered to Singapore Airlines on 24th February 1984 as N119KE, it was again never registered in Singapore. It was sold to Corsair on the 1st September 1995 and registered F-GSUN, which was one of Corsair's three 'pictured' Boeing 747-300, due to the registration, it was called 'Sun' and painted with a sign of the sun, Hence F-GSUN. The aircraft was leased to Sabena on the 12th September 1996, then back to Corsair on the 8th November 1996 and to Garuda 1st March 1997 and then to Air Atlanta, registered TF-AMJ, where it was then leased on to Travel City Direct.

[edit] Livery

Each Airliner of Travel City Direct had a different livery, TF-AME had travelcitydirect.com on the forward fuselage, a red tail with a yellow patch and TRAVEL CITY DIRECT on the tail. The large space between the words TRAVEL and CITY on the tail used to belong to a yellow circle, which was originally part of the Travel City Direct logo before the later branding dropped the circle. TF-AMJ had travelcitydirect on the forward fuselage and a red tail with 'XL.com', the only sign on any of the aircraft that signals that Travel CIty Direct was part of XL Leisure Group

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?regsearch=N121KG&distinct_entry=true
  2. ^ http://www.airliners.net/photo/Singapore-Airlines/Boeing-747-312/0125825&tbl=photo_info&photo_nr=1&prev_id=&next_id=0067168

[edit] External links