The group was broken up as founder Mike Collett approached retirement with the freight arm becoming Atlantic Airlines and the aerial survey work continuing as RVL Aviation.

[2] From October 1977, the company stationed a Dakota at Coventry airport to operate a contract transporting car components to Cologne for Ford.

Instone imported two Bristol Freighters from New Zealand in 1981 to operate freight services; having sold one in 1984 it transferred the second to the Air Atlantique AOC.

[3][6] Between then and the late 1990s, it expanded its operations to create pilot training facilities, aircraft engineering shops, survey and aerial reconnaissance work and other aviation-related activities.

[3][7] The Atlantic Reconnaissance subsidiary was formed in 1988 to look after the pollution control work alongside other airborne remote sensing, survey, and patrol contracts.

In 1994 it was awarded a contract with US-based Marine Oil Spill Response Corporation to operate a Shorts 360 aircraft in a surveillance role.

The purchase gave Air Atlantique access to a catalogue of spare parts and servicing equipment for DC-3s as well as Pratt & Whitney R-1830 and R-2800 engines[3][10] CFS was spun off as an independent company in 2007.

[11] Other subsidiaries included Atlantic Aeroengineering which provided maintenance and special mission modification services to the group from the Coventry base.

[15] Scheduled services, which ended in 1994, included daily flights linking Coventry-Gloucester, Jersey/Guernsey to Rennes, and Liverpool to the Channel Islands.

The airline expanded into freight and passenger operations as well as contract work for the oil industry and the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency.

[13] In August 2002, the group created the Atlantic Express brand to cater for executive passenger and ad-hoc freight charter work.

Pleasure flights of the DC-3 on the Atlantique air operator's certificate ceased in the summer of 2008 owing to new safety regulations which required extensive modification of the airframes which proved uneconomical.

Proving uneconomical to operate, the former was placed in to storage at Manston Airport and later scrapped, whilst the later was sold to Air Swaziland in December 1979.

[3][30] In 1987, G-AMCA was removed from freight work and flown to Greybull, Wyoming for conversion to spray configuration by Hawkins & Powers.

[3][6] The pollution control contract required the use of a Cessna 402 fitted with an Ericsson side looking airborne radar to detect oil spills which resulted in G-MPCU joining the fleet in early 1988.

Five BN-2 Islanders (G-AXZK, G-BCEN, G-BELF, G-BNXA, G-BNXB) joined the fleet from September 1987 and were converted to spray configuration at Coventry.

In 1988 the company fleet swelled in size with the arrival of 7 Cessna 152′s in shipping containers, these being registered as G-HART (Tail Wheel conversion), G-BPBG, G-BPBH, G-BPBI, G-BPBJ, G-BPBK and G-BPBL with BH/I/J/K & L all being sold in 1990.

[34][35][36] At a cost of $500,000 per aircraft, Air Atlantique modified each Electra for two-crew operation and installed new mode-S transponders, TCAS, electrical generators, and 8.33kHz capable radios in order to meet new regulatory requirements.

It operated for various subsidiaries within the group including Highland Airways and Atlantic Express and was used by the Liberal Democrats during the 2005 UK General Election.