Airtours is most of all a huge British touritic group founded in 1972. Their own airline is supposed to have be founded in 1986 but they acknowledge starting flying in 1991. The growth of the company is impressive. In '93, the acquisition of the tour operator Aspro led to automatically taking over its home airline Inter European Airways. The 50 remaining percent of Premiair in Denmark were taken over in '96, which, since then, wears the same color scheme. The policy, as far as colors are concerned, seems to be particularly clear within the group : everybody's got to wear them, also the "affiliates".

In February 98, through the acquisition of Sun International (Belgian Holding behind Sunair - tour operator - and its airline Air Belgium), they formed for Holland, Belgium and France, the WELG (West European Leisure Group). For the Northern part of Europe, they formed the SLG (Scandinavian Leisure Group) and for America, the NALG (North American Leisure Group). For the home market, they obviously have the UKLG (UK Leisure Group).

They certainly look for maximum load factor (93%, in 1997, world record !) by limiting their fleet to the necessary and leasing additional planes for the peak periods.

Airtours International flies for the UK marked (UKLG) and Premiair for Scandinavia (SLG). FlyFTI (own airline - since may 99 - of German tour operator FTI, in which Airtours has a 50% voting capacity), flying under full Airtours colors but with German registration, takes care of the German marked share, most probably with Air Belgium's Boeing 737 (OO-ILJ), illustrated below, which wears some sort of Airtours inspired colors with small titles indicating that it flies for Air Belgium... and FlyFTI ! The plane could be based in Palma de Mallorca, according to some sources.

In January 2000, one of the brand new A330 Premiair was observed at Puerto Plata (North of the Dominican  Republic) but it wore a British registration number (G-CSJS). Probably to be re-regged soon.
 
 
 

	G-DIMB, Airtours Boeing 767-300(ER) - 1997 - just upon arrival at gate at Puerto Plata (POP), Dominican Republic, on Jan. 21st '00. Homebase : Manchester.
	G- ???, Airtours Boeing 757-200, approaching runway at Teneriffe South airfield in December '99
	G-MCEA, Airtours Boeing 757-200, in short finals to Las Palmas in November '99. Dates off 1983 and has been used by Spanair as well. Leased by Airfleet credit Corp, this aircraft ahas been stored at las vegas McCarran as TWFU in 1991.
	OO-ILJ, Air Belgium Boeing 737-400 with big Airtours titles and colors inspired by the Airtours ones. Above the first windows, two stickers have been placed : Air Belgium and FlyFTI (see text above). At Teneriffe South in Dec. '99. This aircraft has been - I think - the longest time in service for Air Belgium and after the collapse and mergers has been regged as D-ABCC for Air Berlin in 2001 for a short while.
	OO-AEY, Air Belgium A320 (1992) about to touch down at Las Palmas in Nov. '99. This is the latest livery of Air Belgium : full Airtours colors again.This plane has logically gone back to Denmark as OY-CNN for sublease to Premiair.
	Premiair A300B4 in short finals to Teneriffe South airfield (Dec. 99) : same colors as Airtours. It's a subsidiary at 100% of the company. See Premiair page.
	D-AFTI, one of the FlyFTI A320s (1992) turning to get in line for take off. Again full Airtours colors, but no such titles, for this aircraft belonging to a company in which Airtours has no 100% stake. Seen at Teneriffe South on Dec. 19th '99. Leased from Orix, this plane has a long American history behind its back, flying for Transmeridian Airlines.