Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was CityFlyer Express airline founded?
The management of Air Europe Express quickly started a new airline, Euroworld Airways, and began operations in May 1991 using two Shorts 360 aircraft and staff from the old Air Europe Express. The new carrier also carried on night freight and mail contracts from the defunct airline. The airline soon began flights from Gatwick to Guernsey, Antwerp and Rotterdam, for which two additional Shorts 360s were purchased. At this time, the airline approached several large carriers with a view to establishing a link, but in the event only British Airways was to show any interest, and a code share agreement was struck between the two.
By the turn of the millennium, BA, the firm's franchisees as well as its subsidiaries and partners in the Oneworld global airline alliance together controlled about 40% of all take-off and landing slots at Gatwick and used a fleet of more than 100 aircraft to serve around 120 destinations worldwide from the airport, more than any other airline from any airport in the UK. Together they carried 8m passengers through Gatwick annually. This accounted for almost 30% of the total number of passengers passing through the airport each year during that period. 45% of the passengers travelling with BA and its affiliated carriers through Gatwick were changing flights there. At the time, CityFlyer Express and the other BA franchisees as well as its subsidiaries and partner airlines at Gatwick accounted for 1,000 of these passengers each day.[10]
The second reason was related to maintaining good industrial relations between management and the workforce, especially those working for the mainline short haul operation at Gatwick. These workers had always regarded the concept of franchising generally and CityFlyer Express in particular as a Trojan horse. They feared that BA's long-term strategy was to hand over its entire, heavily loss-making, mainline short haul operation to profitable franchisees such as CityFlyer, thereby threatening many jobs and the terms of employment of the remaining mainline employees. They also feared that BA would eventually resemble a "virtual" airline.[17]
Following its absorption into British Airways, the airline's turboprops were retired, while the company's fleet of regional short-haul jetliners and the associated crews were transferred to British Airways' regional operation in Birmingham and Manchester. This in turn resulted in British Airways mainline short haul crews based at Gatwick operating most of the erstwhile CityFlyer Express routes using the former's Gatwick-based Boeing 737 fleet.
Within three years from the launch of Project "Jupiter", the BA mainline operation more than doubled the number of long haul aircraft at Gatwick and increased the number of short haul aircraft at the airport by more than half. In addition, the airline's franchisees, notably CityFlyer Express and GB Airways, increased their Gatwick-based fleets as well. During that period the number of BA passengers passing through Gatwick also doubled.
With the franchise agreement due to end in 1999, CityFlyer Express was the second largest slot holder at Gatwick Airport (behind British Airways). It held 96 daily slots at Gatwick, employed 677 people and returned a pre-tax profit of £6.4mn on sales of £89.4mn. The airline’s shareholders took the opportunity to realise their investment and put the airline up for sale. HSBC was appointed to handle the process, and approached a number of carriers about the sale. Of the airlines approached, both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic stated their interest to acquire the airline.
The regional operations of British Airways at Birmingham and Manchester, and the operations of the former CityFlyer Express, were integrated into the new airline later in 2002.
Brad Burgess was instrumental in setting up Connectair. He was managing director of both Air Europe Express and CityFlyer Express. He is now chairman of Astraeus. Flight numbers in the 7000 and 8000 range used to be allocated to CityFlyer Express-operated British Airways franchise flights. Following CityFlyer's integration into the British Airways mainline operation at Gatwick, the latter's scheduled services from the airport to Amsterdam Schiphol, Bordeaux, Dublin, Jersey, Luxembourg, Nice and Toulouse still used flight numbers in these ranges, thus identifying them as former CityFlyer Express routes.
In June 1988 the firm was acquired by the International Leisure Group (ILG), the parent company of Air Europe. Following ILG's acquisition of Connectair, the airline was re-branded Air Europe Express and adopted a new corporate identity as of 1 February 1989.[3]
In addition, the fact that the integration of low-cost CityFlyer Express into the high-cost BA mainline short haul operation at Gatwick inevitably meant that formerly profitable CityFlyer routes were now burdened with the expensive BA mainline overheads, necessitated the withdrawal of additional BA short haul services from Gatwick over the course of a few years, including CityFlyer’s routes to Cologne and Düsseldorf.
BA Cityflyer also lease a small number of aircraft from other airlines. These aircraft are operated and crewed by the third party airline on behalf of BA Cityflyer. As of November 2018, BA Cityflyer lease the following aircraft
BA's subsequent decision to retire the former CityFlyer turboprop fleet, resulted in the withdrawal of the airline's services from Gatwick to Antwerp, Guernsey and Rotterdam.
The Competition Commission eventually cleared the sale of CityFlyer Express to British Airways for £75mn in 1999. However, it also imposed a ceiling on the maximum number of slots British Airways and its newly acquired subsidiary CityFlyer Express were allowed to hold at Gatwick.
The airline was again UK launch customer for the larger, 66-seat ATR 72, the first of which was delivered in October 1994.
Following the integration of CityFlyer Express into BA's mainline short haul operation at Gatwick, all former CityFlyer employees other than flight crew and engineers working on the jet fleet were made redundant.[17] The ex-CityFlyer flight crew and engineers whom BA continued to employ were transferred along with their equipment to BA's regional bases in Birmingham and Manchester.
CityFlyer Express can be traced back to the formation of Connectair in 1983. Connectair became a feeder airline for British Caledonian, at the time the UK's so-called Second Force airline, on 30 May 1984 when it commenced a regional scheduled service between Gatwick and Antwerp with a single, leased Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante turboprop. A small number of larger capacity, more efficient Shorts 330 turboprops eventually replaced the Embraer Bandeirante.
According to this ruling, British Airways and CityFlyer could control a combined maximum of 41% of all Gatwick slots on an annual basis as well as no more than 70% of the airport's slots on an hourly basis and up to 65% of these slots within a two-hour time span. These limits were designed to enable other airlines to offer competitive schedules on short haul routes where British Airways or CityFlyer was the sole or dominant carrier, without resorting to compulsory slot transfers that would have impeded British Airways' ability to run an effective hub-and-spoke operation at Gatwick.
In addition, ILG purchased Guernsey Airlines in April 1989, another small, independent regional airline, which operated scheduled services between Guernsey and Gatwick as well as between Guernsey and Manchester at the time.[5] On 29 October 1989 ILG fully integrated Guernsey Airlines into its existing Air Europe Express operation.[6]
In 1993 it became the first British Airways (BA) franchisee operating as British Airways Express. CityFlyer's ownership passed to BA in 1999 when that company bought out the original promoters as well as 3i, the airline's main shareholder at the time. Initially, CityFlyer continued to operate as a separate unit, but it was eventually absorbed into British Airways' mainline short haul operation at Gatwick in 2001, the result of a change in British Airways' strategy for its Gatwick operation.
Air Europe Express was forced to halt its operations on 8 March 1991 along with its sister airlines in the ILG-controlled Airlines of Europe group as a result of its parent company's decision to put all the group's companies into administrative receivership on that day, even though Air Europe Express itself had remained profitable throughout that period.
BA proposed a solution to this by offering CityFlyer a franchise agreement, which it accepted. This occasion marked the conclusion of the first-ever franchise agreement between British Airways and another airline. It also marked the conclusion of the first franchise agreement in the UK airline industry.
Air Europe Express flew under the same AE airline designator as its bigger sister airline.
The airline rebranded as CityFlyer Express in 1992.
CityFlyer Express acquired its first jet aircraft in March 1997 when it became the first UK-based airline to introduce the Avro RJ100. A second Avro RJ100 was acquired in May of that year. Three more were added in 1998 and a further two joined the fleet in 1999. (At the time, the airline also operated six ATR 42s, one of which was returned to its lessor in 1999, as well as five larger ATR 72s. Three additional ATR 72s were delivered in 1999. Eventually, these replaced the remaining ATR 42s.)
Under this arrangement the CityFlyer aircraft would be painted in full BA livery with interiors and cabin layout conforming to BA's contemporary, standard two-class European product. Staff would wear BA uniforms and all flights would operate under BA flight numbers. British Airways itself would take over CityFlyer's marketing and handle all reservations on its behalf. To all intents and purposes, CityFlyer Express would present itself and trade as British Airways.