regional airline. Following that airline's acquisition by ILG, Connectair was re-branded Air Europe Express and adopted a new corporate identity as of 1 February 1989. ILG's decision to purchase Connectair was part of Air Europe's corporate strategy at the time to establish itself as a major short-haul scheduled operator at its Gatwick base. Gatwick had become very busy during the late 1980s. This meant that the much-coveted early-morning peak time slots, which Air Europe needed to be able to operate at times that were attractive to business travellers as well as competitive with its rivals' departure and arrival times, were in increasingly short supply. Connectair held a fairly large number of conveniently timed slots at Gatwick. ILG's acquisition of Connectair therefore represented a golden opportunity to substantially increase the number of slots the group's airlines controlled at Gatwick, thereby strengthening Air Europe's competitive position at that airport. Air Europe Express flew under the same AE airline designator as its bigger sister airline. Its scheduled services initially linked Gatwick with Antwerp, Düsseldorf and Rotterdam. Larger Shorts 360s gradually replaced the Shorts 330s. In April 1989 ILG purchased Guernsey Airlines, another small, independent regional airline, which operated scheduled services between Guernsey and Gatwick as well as between Guernsey and Manchester at the time. On 29 October 1989 ILG fully integrated Guernsey Airlines into Air Europe Express. These moves provided Air Europe with additional transfer traffic for its developing short-haul European scheduled route network. They also enabled Air Europe to launch new routes where there was insufficient traffic to support its larger Boeing 737 and Fokker 100 jet aircraft or where these aircraft were too big to provide a frequent schedule during the start-up phase, such as Gatwick—Düsseldorf for instance. Following the replacement of the Air Europe Express Shorts 360 turboprops with Air Europe's larger and faster Fokker 100 jets on the Gatwick—Düsseldorf route, Air Europe Express launched a new thrice-daily Gatwick—Birmingham schedule with its Shorts 360s. During the year ending August 1990 the Air Europe Express operation carried more than a quarter of a million passengers across its route network for the first time. Air Europe Express was forced to halt its operations on 8 March 1991, along with its sister airlines in the ILG-controlled Airlines of Europe group as a result of its parent company's decision to put all the group's companies into administrative receivership on that day, even though Air