Horizon Travel or the Horizon Holiday Group was a British package holiday company which was one of the first ventures in the package holiday market. [1]
The company was co-founded by Vladimir Raitz and Lenny Koven on 12 October 1949. [2] The company organised the first mass package holidays abroad with charter flights between Gatwick airport and Corsica in 1950, and organized the first package holiday to Palma in 1952, Lourdes in 1953, and the Costa Brava and Sardinia in 1954. In addition, the amendments made in Montreal to the Convention on International Civil Aviation on 14 June 1954 created the impetus for mass tourism using charter planes to Spain.
In 1974, Horizon was taken over by the Clarksons Travel Group, part of Court Line which went bankrupt in August that year. [3] [4]
Court Line was a 20th-century British tramp shipping company that was founded in 1905. In the 1960s it diversified into shipbuilding and charter aviation. Its merchant shipping interests were based in London. Its shipyards were at Appledore in Devon and Sunderland in Tyne and Wear. Its airline was based at Luton Airport in Bedfordshire. It also provided bus services in Luton and surrounding areas.
CanJet was a Canadian low-cost air carrier headquartered in Enfield, Nova Scotia and based at Halifax International Airport. In addition to initially flying scheduled passenger service, CanJet operated charter flights using its own brand as well as flying contract and ad hoc charters for other tour operators and airlines throughout Canada and the United States. CanJet was wholly owned by IMP Group International and had 572 employees as of March 2007. The airline ceased operations in 2015.
A tour operator is a business that typically combines and organizes accommodations, meals, sightseeing and transportation components, in order to create a package tour. They advertise and produce brochures to promote their products, holidays and itineraries. Tour operators can sell directly to the public or sell through travel agents or a combination of both.
Britannia Airways was a charter airline based in the UK. It was founded in 1961 as Euravia and became the world's largest holiday airline. Britannia's main bases were at London Gatwick, London Stansted, London Luton, Cardiff, Bristol, East Midlands, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds Bradford, Liverpool, and Glasgow. It had its headquarters at Britannia House in Luton.
A package tour, package vacation, or package holiday comprises transport and accommodation advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator. Other services may be provided such as a rental car, activities or outings during the holiday. Transport can be via automobile, buses, charter airline, and may also include travel between areas as part of the holiday. Package holidays are a form of product bundling.
ABTA Ltd, operating as ABTA – The Travel Association and formerly known as the Association of British Travel Agents, is a trade association for tour operators and travel agents in the United Kingdom.
First Choice Holidays Limited is a British online travel agency and tour operator, headquartered in Luton, England. It is a subsidiary of TUI UK, itself a subsidiary of TUI Group, and its holidays are sold solely online. It also operates own brand hotels.
TUI fly Deutschland, formerly TUIfly, is a German leisure airline owned by the travel and tourism company TUI Group. It is headquartered at Hannover Airport with bases at several other German airports. TUI fly Deutschland is part of TUI Group's airline unit.
Club 18-30 was a holiday company working from its head office in Peterborough, that provided holidays for people aged 18–30 in typical party island destinations. Club 18-30 was sold on to Thomas Cook in 1998 and took around 45,000 guests each year. The average age of guests was 19, and one third of customers were travelling on holiday without their parents for the first time.
Vladimir Gavrilovich Raitz was a Russian-born British businessman who co-founded the Horizon Holiday Group, which pioneered the first mass package holidays abroad. Born in Moscow, his family were White Russian Jews who left the Soviet Union when he was six, and variously passed through Berlin and Warsaw before finally settling in London.
Sir Gordon Charles Brunton was a British businessman, publisher, racehorse owner and breeder.
Orion Airways was an airline based in the United Kingdom with its head office on the grounds of East Midlands Airport in Castle Donington, North West Leicestershire. It was established as the charter airline of Horizon Travel and went on to develop scheduled services. The airline operated a fleet of Boeing 737-200s, Boeing 737-300s and Airbus A300s between 1979 and 1989.
The XL Leisure Group (XLLG) was a major tour operating company in the UK, consisting of charter and scheduled airlines, holiday companies and flight-only tour operators. It also had operations in France, Germany, Ireland, Australia and Cyprus. The group's UK companies were placed into administration on 12 September 2008.
Kuoni Travel is a tourism company, operating various services including charter and scheduled passenger airlines, package holidays, cruise lines, and hotels in destinations around the world across nine different geographic regions.
Travel City Direct was a brand owned by Virgin Holidays. It was previously the trading name of the Really Great Holiday Company PLC, a British holiday company based in Crawley, specialising in holidays to the United States. The company was part of the third largest tour operator in the United Kingdom, the XL Leisure Group and was the UK's largest direct sell tour operator to Florida.
Transair Limited was an early post-World War II private, independent British airline formed in 1947. It began as an air taxi operator at Croydon Airport. In 1953, it started inclusive tour (IT) charter flights. By 1957, Transair became part of the Airwork group. The following year it shifted its operating base and headquarters to Gatwick Airport. In 1960, Transair was absorbed into British United Airways (BUA), as a result of the Airwork — Hunting-Clan merger.
Clarksons Travel Group was a pioneering package tour operator in the UK during the 1960s and early 1970s. Its founder, in 1959 as Clarksons Tours, a subsidiary of the long-established City firm of H. Clarkson shipbrokers, was Tom Gullick, a former flag lieutenant in the Royal Navy.
STA Travel was a Travel Supplier supplying travel products and service to the general public through their 200 retail travel agency stores located globally. It was owned by Diethelm Keller Holding (DKH), with headquarters in Zurich and London. It had almost 2,000 employees working in over 200 stores worldwide.
Cosmos is a UK independent tour operator providing a range of package holidays to the UK market. The tour operator is connected to the international Globus Travel Group, founded in 1928, which remains family owned with headquarters in Lugano, Switzerland. Under parent company Cosmos Tours Ltd, the tour operator offers holidays through two brands: Cosmos and Avalon Waterways.
Thomas Cook Tourism (UK) Company Limited, known as Thomas Cook UK, is an Anglo-Chinese package holiday provider which offers 'Flight + Hotel' packages and Hotel only bookings. The company was launched in 2019, when Chinese firm Fosun International purchased the brand from the insolvent Thomas Cook Group, and began trading in September 2020.