Boeing 767-300ER BritSky Poster

Let's try this again. Almost completely changing this airline. Hopefully it's better this time.

BritSky Airways, more widely known as BritSky, is a British mid-size carrier headquartered in Bristol, with Bristol and London Gatwick as its biggest hubs. The airline specialises in regional and European flights, although limited service to North America is provided with a fleet of 767s. BritSky was bought by Sovereign Airways in 2015, becoming a fully-owned subsidiary of the Sovereign Travel Group.

The airline was founded on June 11th, 1962 by aviation enthusiast and successful businessman John Truscot. At the time, two major airlines "ruled" England and Great Britain, British Atlantic and Sovereign Airways. These two airlines specialised in international, and primarily transatlantic services. Sovereign Airways did offer regional and European routes with a fleet of Vickers Viscounts and Vanguards, but the majority of their operations were focused on long-haul services. Seeing this relatively large gap in the market, Truscot, who had recently resigned from his old job as a managing director for an advertisement company, founded BritSky Airways. He bought the name rights for the airline from a defunct British carrier of the same name, which had used de-militarised Douglas DC-3s from 1947 to 1955. The logo choice for the airline was a rose, partly because a rose is the national flower of England, and partly because it was the favourite flower of Truscot's wife, who had died from cancer a year before. BritSky's first aircraft were two ex-Sovereign Airways Vickers Viscounts, which Truscot configured to carry 66 passengers.

November 13th, 1962 marked the day of the first flight by the airline, when one of the Viscounts took off from Bristol, and landed in London roughly 5 hours later. Flights were operated using a fleet of 12 Vickers Viscounts that were acquired from Sovereign Airways and other failed British startups. Profits were good, and in 1967, Truscot took a gamble by placing an order for 8 BAC 1-11 jets, the first of which entered service in August 1970. The BAC 1-11 was incredibly successful with BritSky, and growth was substantial. A total of 33 BAC 1-11s were operated by BritSky over their service life. Truscot's dream of ruling the British short-haul market was slowly coming true.

Fast forward to 1985, and Truscot decided to take another big gamble. He had been thinking about opening transatlantic flights for a few years by then, and with the launch of the new Boeing 767, he had made up his mind. In April 1986, alongside an order for 45 Boeing 737 Classics, Truscot ordered 4 Boeing 767-300s. In 1988, the orders were converted to the longer-range 767-300ER. The original 4 were delivered using General Electric CF6 engines. Then, in 1989, Boeing announced a version of the 767-300ER powered by Roll-Royce RB211 engines. Given that the CF6-powered 763s were already excelling at their job, proving to be very successful and reliable, BritSky was ecstatic, and ordered another 6 767-300ERs, to be powered by RB-211s. BritSky was the launch customer for the Rolls-Royce-powered 767-300ER.

Shown above is G-MEGA, the airline's first 767-300ER, powered by CF6 engines, and G-MEGS, one of the airline's RB-211-powered 767-300ERs, wearing the airlines current livery, introduced in 2015, when the airline was bought by Sovereign Airways. The livery has a small sticker saying "Proud Member Of The Sovereign Travel Group" underneath the rose on the top of the livery. The Rolls-Royce-powered 767-300ERs weren't equipped with winglets, as that never became an option.

This story is incredibly long, so I'm going to continue it in another post. Stay tuned!

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