replaced all of the older, smaller F-27 100/200/400/600 series aircraft in its fleet with additional, stretched F-27-500s. (Air UK operated a total of 22 F-27s of various marks throughout its existence, all of which it had acquired second-hand.) By the late 1990s, a fleet of new Fokker 50 and ATR-72 turboprops replaced the aging F-27-500s. During that period Air UK also retired all of its 146-200s as well as the 146-100s. Air UK Leisure In 1987, Air UK established Air UK Leisure as its new charter subsidiary in association with charter brokerage firm Viking International. Air UK Leisure's corporate headquarters were located at Air UK's Stansted base. Its main operating bases were at London Gatwick, London Stansted and Manchester. Operations commenced with three second-hand Boeing 737-200s. These were replaced with seven brand-new 737-400s, making Air UK Leisure first European operator of the -400 in October 1988. In 1993, Air UK Leisure entered the long-haul leisure market through the acquisition of a pair of Boeing 767 300 ER series widebodied aircraft. Both aircraft were contracted by tour operator Unijet. Although Air UK Leisure operated these aircraft under the same Air Operator Certificate (AOC) as its 737 400 series narrow-bodied short-/medium-haul fleet, it adopted the Leisure International Airways brand for its long-haul operation. Air UK Leisure was subsequently sold to Unijet, which in turn became part of the First Choice group. Focusing on Stansted Following the move to Stansted in 1988, Air UK became London's third airport's biggest resident airline and its main scheduled operator. The company began building a comprehensive network of short-haul domestic and European feeder routes that was intended to provide connecting traffic for the long-haul carriers that were then expected to commence operations from Stansted, as a result of the increasingly tight slot situation at both London Heathrow as well as London Gatwick, at the time London's two main gateway/hub airports, especially at peak times. Air UK's move to the new Norman Foster-designed terminal in early 1991 provided the impetus for the launch of several new, year-round scheduled routes linking Stansted with important business destinations including Belfast, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Inverness, Madrid, Milan Linate, Munich and Zürich (in addition to the existing year-round scheduled routes serving Aberdeen, Amsterdam, Brussels, the Channel Islands, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Paris). However, the unfavourable economic conditions in the UK at the time, i.e. the severe early 1990s recession and the fallout from the