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 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 south of
London 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 707-123Bs to enable it to commence non-stop, long-haul
charter flights, including
affinity group charters to
North America. 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, 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
turbofans 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. In 1975, British Airtours commenced
transatlantic Advance Booking Charter (ABC) flights to the
United States. 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 737s and
757s, a follow-on order for nine brand-new
737-236 Advanced aircraft was placed with
Boeing. 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. The same year, British Airtours' last Boeing 707 made its final revenue flight. 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).
Rebranding and later activity In April 1988, British Airtours adopted the popular
Caledonian Airways 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-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==