British International Sunshine | 2010

(TOP)
Airline - British International Sunshine
Aircraft - Airbus A320-200 | G-MEJT
Delivered to British International, 2004
Transferred to British International Sunshine, 2010
Transferred to British International, 2014
Livery - Sunshine 2010
Country - Great Britain

(BOTTOM)
Airline - British International Sunshine
Aircraft - Airbus A330-200 | G-BGDL
Delivered to British International Sunshine, 2010
Transferred to British International, 2014
Livery - Sunshine 2010
Country - Great Britain

Somewhere around the mid 00s, British International had mostly abandoned its humble beginnings as a holiday and charter carrier, focusing instead on premium travel out of its hub in Heathrow, retaining only a very minor infrastructure at its original hub in Stansted, mostly used for rare long-haul charters. However, in 2010 - as the leisure travel market was beginning to recover from the Great Recession - a decision was made to establish a leisure arm of the airline. Through a complicated gate and slot swap arrangement, British International gained several gates and slots at London Gatwick at the expense of all their remaining infrastructure in Stansted. Five A320s were reconfigured in a new, more dense configuration with 186 Economy Class seats, and three of the A330-200s delivered that year were received in a much dense configuration than the other A330s, with a super-dense 3-3-3 layout in Economy for a total of 344 Economy seats, and only 9 Thompson Vantage (lie-flat, staggered) Business Class seats, the same as the ones installed on the airline's other A330-200s. These A320s and A330s were painted in a bright leisure-themed version of the standard British International livery, with orange and yellow replacing the usual purple shades. 'Sunshine' titling was also applied in a billboard manner to the sides of these aircraft, reminiscent of the way 'British' had been written on the fuselage of the 747s in the original 90s livery.

All eight aircraft were based at Gatwick, operating charter flights as well as low-cost holiday routes to the south of Europe, including popular destinations such as Alicante, Ibiza, Tenerife, Barcelona, Cagliari, Mykonos, Crete, Rhodes, and many more. The A330s were operated on these short-haul routes during periods of high demand, but also to farther leisure destinations such as Turkey and Egypt plus Caribbean destinations like Aruba, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic. While initially the business model had some success, after a few years of operations it was decided that it was not possible to achieve the profit margins of a true low-cost carrier with such a small fleet, and that the eight aircraft tied up in the Sunshine project could be more productive flying full-service routes. Because of this, in 2014 all eight were reconfigured to the mainline configuration, repainted, and returned into the main British International fleet.

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