registrations, was to look at the national flag following the Air Europe/Air Europa name on the upper, white part of the fuselage. ILG eventually created Dutch-incorporated Airlines of Europe BV as a joint management and holding company for all of these airlines. ILG 's move to seek a pan-European presence, including the Spanish market, the most important destination market for its charter operations from the UK, was not only driven by its desire to take advantage of new business opportunities resulting from the gradual liberalisation of Europe's air transport market. Another important factor leading to this decision was to ensure the widest possible UK coverage for its package tour operations to enable Intasun to compete better with market leader Thomson. ILG wanted to be able to do this without incurring the additional expense of stationing aircraft and crews at regional UK airports to operate a small number of seasonal flights only or, alternatively, incurring the cost of operating empty legs with aircraft repositioned from its two main bases at Gatwick and Manchester. This resulted in an arrangement whereby Air Europa's aircraft were flying German and Scandinavian holidaymakers during daytime and Intasun's regional customers at night. The resulting higher aircraft utilisation and lower direct operating costs for Air Europa compared with Thomson sister company Britannia Airways, the UK's leading charter airline and Air Europe's greater competitor in the European charter market, in turn enabled Intasun to undercut Thomson's prices. Scheduled services Air Europe took its first tentative steps to become a scheduled-service airline in 1980, its second year of operation. However, the attempt failed. Low-frequency scheduled services on selected leisure routes to destinations already served by Air Europe's charter operation did eventually commence in 1985. City-pair scheduled services plying the major international European trunk routes from Air Europe's Gatwick base began in 1987. As part of a major scheduled service expansion, Air Europe launched a new business class in 1988. This was accompanied by an increase in frequencies on most of its scheduled European trunk routes. It also introduced a new scheduled service aircraft type from late 1989. At that time, work started on licence applications for several long-haul scheduled services. Abortive attempt to go long-haul Air Europe prepared to enter the scheduled service market as early as April 1980 when it applied to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for a licence to begin a year-round scheduled operation between London Gatwick