CityFlyer Express
CityFlyer Express was a short-haul regional airline with its head office in the Iain Stewart Centre next to London Gatwick Airport in England.
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Founded | 1991 (as Euroworld Airways) | ||||||
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Ceased operations | 2003 | ||||||
Hubs | London City London Gatwick | ||||||
Fleet size | 21 (16 Avro RJ100, 5 ATR 72 (as of late-2000)) | ||||||
Destinations | British Isles, Continental Europe | ||||||
Parent company | British Airways | ||||||
Headquarters | Gatwick Airport Crawley, England | ||||||
Key people | Brad Burgess, managing director Robert Wright, chairman |
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.
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.