British Airtours (stylised as British aırtours) was a British
charter airline
Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a ticket through a traditional airline).
Regulation
Charter – also called air taxi or ad hoc – flights ...
with flight operations out of
London Gatwick and
Manchester Airports.
Established as BEA Airtours in 1969, it became a wholly owned
subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a ...
of
British Airways
British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport.
The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...
(BA) following the merger between
British European Airways (BEA) and
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in the early 1970s. British Airtours adopted the
Caledonian Airways
Caledonian Airways was a wholly private, independentindependent from government-owned corporations British charter airline formed in April 1961. It began with a single 104-seat Douglas DC-7C leased from the Belgian flag carrier Sabena.''Fly ...
name when the newly British Airways completed the acquisition of the rival
British Caledonian in April 1988.
Caledonian Airways
Caledonian Airways was a wholly private, independentindependent from government-owned corporations British charter airline formed in April 1961. It began with a single 104-seat Douglas DC-7C leased from the Belgian flag carrier Sabena.''Fly ...
was eventually sold to tour operator Inspirations in 1995, marking BA's exit from the mainstream
inclusive tour market. In 1999,
Thomas Cook acquired Inspirations and merged Caledonian Airways with
Flying Colours to form
JMC Air Services, a forerunner of the UK arm of the later
Thomas Cook Airlines.On 23 September 2019, Thomas Cook Airlines ceased operations, thus ending the legacy of British Airtours.
History
Origins
BEA Airtours was formed on 24 April 1969 as a division of BEA to provide it with a
low cost platform to participate in the then rapidly growing
inclusive tour (IT) holiday flights market, which until then had been the exclusive domain of wholly privately owned airlines independent from the
government-owned corporation BEA and BOAC. BEA saw this as a necessary counterweight to the independents' rapidly growing scheduled activities that began encroaching on what BEA and BOAC had traditionally regarded as their sole preserve.
["BEA Names Charter Company."](_blank)
'' Flight International'', 17 April 1969. p. 612. BEA Airtours' formation was in line with one of the recommendations of the Edwards Report on the future of British air industry – that the corporations should enter the inclusive tour and charter market.
The independent charter airlines were suspicious of BEA's motive to enter the IT market and some feared that the operator held a hidden agenda to destabilise this market by undercutting the independent carriers, none of which could match the corporation's financial resources and access to capital at the time. The independents moreover thought that BEA Airtours was meant to take on the corporations' excess staff as well as to absorb aircraft that were surplus to their requirements. They feared that this would lead to significant
market distortions, creating excess capacity and further depressing the already low
charter rates in a highly competitive market.
BEA's new charter division had a startup capital of
£250,000 and selected
Gatwick Airport
Gatwick Airport (), also known as London Gatwick , is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, south of Central London. In 2021, Gatwick was the third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after ...
south of
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
to serve as its base, where it took over the former Transglobe Airways
hangar to provide engineering support for its Gatwick fleet. During 1970, the airline commenced commercial operations out of Gatwick, initially using a fleet of seven second-hand ex-BEA
de Havilland Comet series 4B aircraft which seated 109 passengers in a single-class configuration.
On 6 March 1970, the first revenue flight departed Gatwick.
Corporate changes and new services
During 1971, BEA Airtours had decided to replace the entire fleet with a similar number of larger capacity, longer
range and more fuel-efficient ex-
American Airlines Boeing 707-123B
The Boeing 707 is an American, long-range, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype first flown in 1954, the initial first flew on December 20, ...
s
["Airtours 707s: February decision: Air Transport."](_blank)
''Flight International'', 14 January 1971. p. 45. to enable it to commence non-stop, long-haul
charter flights, including
affinity group charters to
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...
.
["Airtours expansion: Air Transport."](_blank)
''Flight International'', 20 January 1972. p. 85.
''Flight International'', 6 September 1973. p. 397. Despite having obtained permission from the
Department of Trade and Industry to import second-hand
707-120Bs and the non-availability of internally sourced alternatives (BOAC's
707-436s) within the envisaged timeframe,
both corporations opposed this decision. They insisted that any new aircraft should be exclusively sourced from the existing BEA and BOAC fleets.
Following the corporations' intervention, BEA Airtours acquired seven former BOAC
Boeing 707-436s.
["Airtours buys BOAC 707s."](_blank)
''Flight International'', 1 July 1971. p. 2.
''Flight International'', 23 December 1971. p. 997. These aircraft had a greater seating capacity than required and were powered by four
Rolls-Royce Conway engines, an older generation engine type than the four
Pratt & Whitney JT3D
turbofan
The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft engine, aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which ac ...
s which powered the ex-American
707-123Bs it had originally selected to replace its Comet fleet. This meant that the ex-BOAC 707s had higher
operating costs. However, BOAC was prepared to sell these aircraft to BEA Airtours at a lower price than American was asking for its planes. The £4.3
m sale price included BOAC's entire spares holding (inclusive of engines) for the seven aircraft. This helped compensate for the cost differential. The first of these 174-seat aircraft entered service in 1971 while the last aircraft of this batch joined the fleet in 1973.
By that time, four of the airline's nine
Comet 4Bs had already been withdrawn from service and sold to rival British charter airlines.
The
1973 oil crisis in the wake of the 1973
Arab-Israeli War
The Arab citizens of Israel are the Demographics of Israel#Arabs, largest ethnic minority in the country. They comprise a hybrid community of Israeli citizenship law, Israeli citizens with a heritage of Palestinian Citizenship Order 1925, Pales ...
, which led to a quadrupling of the price of a
barrel of
oil, substantially increased the operating costs of the remaining fuel-thirsty Comets and began to have an adverse impact on the airline's financial performance. British Airtours, as the airline had become known following the establishment of
British Airways
British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport.
The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...
in 1974 as a result of the 1972 BEA—BOAC merger, therefore decided to retire its remaining five Comets at the end of that year's summer season and to sell the entire fleet to independent British operator
Dan-Air.
In 1975, British Airtours commenced
transatlantic Advance Booking Charter
Advance Booking Charter flights were first introduced in the early 1970s to meet the largely unsatisfied demand for affordable long-haul flights to popular destinations, especially on both sides of the North Atlantic ocean.
The world's first ABC f ...
(ABC) flights to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. Over the coming years, British Airtours acquired additional Boeing 707s which British Airways had inherited from BOAC. In June 1982, British Airtours launched twice-weekly scheduled services between Gatwick and
Newark using Boeing 707s in an all-
economy configuration. However, the airline's foray into the transatlantic scheduled market ended after only seven months in early January 1983.
When British Airways decided in the late-1970s to replace the aging and increasingly inefficient short-/medium-haul
Hawker Siddeley Tridents and
BAC One-Elevens which it had inherited from BEA with
Boeing 737
The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington.
Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...
s and
757s, a follow-on order for nine brand-new
737-236 Advanced aircraft was placed with
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...
. These aircraft, which were delivered to British Airtours' Gatwick base during the early 1980s, allowed it to replace all of its old, second-hand
narrow-bodied planes with brand-new equipment, thereby considerably enhancing its competitiveness vis-à-vis its independent rivals.
During 1984, British Airtours took delivery of a
Rolls-Royce RB211-powered
Boeing 747-236Bs at Gatwick, its first and only brand-new
widebodied aircraft. This aircraft was put into service on the airline's popular, long-haul ABC flights to North America.
["Air Transport."](_blank)
''Flight International'', 31 March 1984. p. 794. The same year, British Airtours' last Boeing 707 made its final revenue flight.
''Flight International'', 17 March 1984. p. 665. In the meantime, British Airtours also began taking delivery of a small number of former British Airways
Lockheed L-1011 Tristar widebodies, which initially supplemented its narrow-bodied 737 fleet on the busier and more popular routes. In 1985, British Airtours introduced a new
livery that closely resembled the one used by British Airways at the time (designed by
Landor Associates
Landor is a brand consulting firm founded in 1941 by Walter Landor, who pioneered some research, design, and consulting methods that the branding industry still uses.
Headquartered in San Francisco, the company maintains 26 offices in 20 countr ...
).
Rebranding and later activity
In April 1988, British Airtours adopted the popular
Caledonian Airways
Caledonian Airways was a wholly private, independentindependent from government-owned corporations British charter airline formed in April 1961. It began with a single 104-seat Douglas DC-7C leased from the Belgian flag carrier Sabena.''Fly ...
brand when the newly privatised British Airways had completed the takeover of its former Gatwick-based rival
British Caledonian. As an additional measure to signify the change, the airline also adopted a modified Caledonian livery which had been adapted from the contemporary, Landor Associates-designed British Airways livery. The newly rebranded Caledonian Airways transferred its Gatwick operation from the airport's South Terminal into the then brand-new North Terminal, thereby concentrating the majority of the British Airways group's Gatwick services within the new terminal.
Shortly thereafter, Caledonian Airways commenced the replacement of its Boeing 737 narrow-bodies with additional ex-British Airways
L-1011 Tristar widebodies as well as with a number of brand-new Boeing 757s sourced from the large
757 orders placed by its parent company. The former British Airtours 737s were re-configured in British Airways' contemporary short-haul two-class cabin arrangement and began to replace the
BAC One-Eleven 500s which British Airways had inherited from British Caledonian on the UK
flag carrier's short-haul Gatwick routes.
During 1995, British Airways decided to exit the short- to medium-haul
package holiday market; accordingly, the airline sold Caledonian Airways to British-based tour operator ''Inspirations'', which was then a part of the
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
-owned
Carlson group, along with the firm's core fleet of five Tristars. Following Caledonian's sale to Inspirations, the Boeing 757s were returned to British Airways. During 1999, Inspirations became part of the Thomas Cook group when Caledonian Airways was merged with the Flying Colours airline to form JMC Air Services, which in turn became the British arm of the present day Thomas Cook Airlines. Following Inspirations' takeover by Thomas Cook, the remaining former Caledonian Airways Tristars were withdrawn from service as these had suffered increasing and widely publicised reliability problems which had resulted in a generally poor perception of Caledonian amongst the travelling public.
Aircraft operated
Throughout its 29-year existence the following aircraft types formed part of the BEA Airtours/British Airtours/Caledonian fleet:
*
Airbus A320-200
Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...
(Caledonian)
*
Boeing 707-336B/C (British Airtours)/436 (BEA Airtours/British Airtours)
*
Boeing 737-236 Advanced (British Airtours/Caledonian)
*
Boeing 747-236B (British Airtours)
*
Boeing 757-236 (Caledonian)
*
de Havilland Comet 4B
The de Havilland DH.106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four d ...
(BEA Airtours)
*
Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 1/50/100/200 (British Airtours/Caledonian)
*
McDonnell-Douglas DC-10-30 (Caledonian).
Fleet details
Fleet in 1970
In March 1970, the BEA Airtours fleet comprised 9 aircraft.
[''World Airlines 1970 ...'', Flight International, 26 March 1970, p. 474](_blank)
/ref>
Fleet in 1972
In May 1972, the BEA Airtours fleet comprised 11 aircraft.
Five Boeing 707-436 were on order.
Fleet in 1974
In March 1974, the British Airtours fleet comprised 9 aircraft.
Fleet in 1982
In April 1982, the British Airtours fleet comprised 9 aircraft.''World Airline Directory'', Flight International, 3 April 1982, p. 826
/ref>
Fleet in 1984
In March 1984, the British Airtours fleet comprised 16 aircraft.
/ref>
Fleet in 1988
In March 1988, the British Airtours fleet comprised 10 aircraft.
Incidents and accidents
* On 17 March 1977, a Boeing 707-436, crashed soon after takeoff, injuring the 4 crew on board. The flight was a training session for three trainees at Glasgow Prestwick Airport. The cause was a delay of the pilots doing the correct procedures for a failing engine.
* On 27 May 1985, a Lockheed TriStar, G-BBAI, operating Flight 101, overran the runway at Leeds Bradford Airport on landing from Palma
Palma or La Palma means palm in a number of languages and may also refer to:
Geography Africa
* Palma, Mozambique, city
** Palma District
* La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, Spain
** La Palma (DO), a ''Denominación de Origen'' for wines from ...
after a rain shower. The aircraft was evacuated, with only minor injuries sustained by the 14 crew and 398 passengers. The nose landing gear strut folded backwards during the overrun, leading to severe damage to the underside of the forward fuselage. The undersides of both wing-mounted engines were flattened and both engines suffered ingestion damage. The main wheels of the aircraft also dug deep troughs in the area beyond the end of the runway, damaging the buried airfield lighting cables. The accident report concluded that the overrun was caused by the inability of the aircraft to achieve the appropriate level of braking effectiveness, and recommended that both the scheduled wet runway performance of the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar and the condition of the surface of runway 14 at Leeds Bradford Airport should be re-examined.
* On 22 August 1985, British Airtours Flight 28M caught fire after an aborted take off at Manchester Airport while on a charter flight to the Greek island of Corfu. The fuel access panel on the aircraft's fuselage was pierced by a part of the compressor that had been ejected from the port engine as a result of a malfunction. The fire quickly engulfed the area around the rear of the plane filling the cabin with toxic fumes. Fifty-three passengers and two crew members died as a result – most of them dying of asphyxiation
Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can ...
after inhaling the fumes.
See also
* List of defunct airlines of the United Kingdom
This is a list of defunct airlines of the United Kingdom.
See also
* List of airlines of the United Kingdom
* List of airports in the United Kingdom and the British Crown Dependencies
References
*
*
{{List of defunct airlines
...
References
Citations
Bibliography
* (various issues relating to BEA/British Airtours, 1969–1988)
*British Airways Archives and Museum Collection (1969–1995)
*
''Aircraft'' online
External links
Former employees site
AAIB report No:8/88 — Boeing 737-236, G-BGJL, at Manchester Airport
{{Airlines of the United Kingdom
Defunct airlines of the United Kingdom
Airlines established in 1969
Airlines disestablished in 1988
1969 establishments in England
1988 disestablishments in England