Airways' decision to curb its short- to medium-haul charter activities, as a result of that airline's increasing focus on its long-haul, transatlantic Skytrain scheduled no frills services, as well as by British Caledonian's decision to withdraw completely from the market. Therefore, a regional niche market opportunity arose specialising in short-haul. Radical departure from established practices in the charter airline industry During his time as Dan-Air's associate director in charge of the airline's operations, Errol Cossey oversaw the successful introduction of new jet aircraft types into Dan-Air's fleet, beginning with the de Havilland Comet series 4 in 1966 and continuing with the BAC One-Eleven 400 series in 1969, the Boeing 707-320 "Intercontinental" in 1971, the Boeing 727-100 in 1973 as well as the BAC One-Eleven 500 in 1975. He assumed control over the charter fleet, numbering 28 aircraft during the mid-1970s. At that time, Intasun contracted a growing share of its business to Dan-Air. Intasun, like Dan-Air at that time, was shunned by doubtful writers as 'no frills'. It was mainly competing on price with the other tour operators, notably market leader Thomson Holidays. A factor behind Air Europe's undercutting of prices while continuing to expand profitably was that it first waited for all the other operators to place their business with Dan-Air and only then placed its contracts, fitting in with whenever aircraft and crews were available. This meant that a lot of Intasun's business involved mid-week and night flying. This, in turn, was a win-win for both operator and airline. It enabled Intasun to charter aircraft at substantially lower rates than its competitors, who had to pay a premium for chartering planes at weekend peak times and it permitted Dan-Air to increase its fleet's utilisation, thereby boosting the company's overall profitability. However, the high fuel consumption of Dan-Air's "mix'n match" fleet – especially the Comets, which at that time made up the bulk of its charter fleet – against the backdrop of steeply rising jet fuel prices in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis made it more and more difficult to offer Intasun the rates at which it was prepared to contract its business to Dan-Air. Errol Cossey became convinced that he could offer Intasun these rates without difficulty, and do a lot more business with it, if Dan-Air had more modern aircraft with a substantially lower fuel-burn and overall lower direct operating costs in its fleet. He