Sunliners Travel Agency was a travel agent based in Southampton. Alec Gilroy, who had moved there in 1992 to work on cruise ships, was employed by the company, and in early 1996 he was promoted to run the Weatherfield branch at 7 Rosamund Street. He took over from the previous manager Harry Slater that April, but was immediately embarrassed by the dilapidated condition of the shop unit. Nevertheless, the branch performed well, and in May 1996 Alec employed Deirdre Rachid as an assistant, followed by Joyce Smedley as a cleaner two months later – although she was sacked just before Christmas for stealing money.
Alec was summoned to Southampton in May 1997 to see company chairman Sam Briscoe, who made him redundant and promoted Deirdre in his place. This was around the time when Deirdre's relationship with conman Jon Lindsay was developing, and it was when Ken Barlow was collecting a Sunliners' customer from Manchester Airport that he discovered Jon was a shop worker, not a pilot as he had claimed. Deirdre subsequently became entangled in Jon's fraudulent behaviour, and the adverse publicity resulted in Sunliners sacking her in April 1998.
- Sunliners originally featured in Coronation Street - The Feature Length Special, the straight-to-video special released in 1995. Mrs Bligh, the company's cruise director and therefore Alec's boss, travelled on the QE2 as a passenger to keep an eye on him.