Originally Posted by
chevvron
Northeast was the amalgamation of 'BKS' and 'Channel'. I can remember 'BKS Yankee Delta' becoming 'Northeast Yankee Delta', the 'Yankee Delta' being the aircraft's (Trident 2E) 'last two'.
As already pointed out BKS to Northeast was a straight rename. Designed to reflect the airline's services to Newcastle, Leeds etc rather than initials of it's founders Messrs Barnby, Keegan and Stevens. I think it became part of BEA owned British Air Services about the same time.
Channel Airways, for whom at least some of BKS/Northeast's Tridents were built, ceased operations at end of February 1972. BEA though had a Channel Islands Division operating Jersey/Guernsey services and also those from Birmingham. A Scottish division ran internal services in Scotland and some London services such as Wick and Inverness.
Northeast, Cambrian, Scottish and Channel Islands were rolled together as Regional from April 1976. Initially they used a mix of Bealine and Speedbird callsigns, Leeds to London for example being BE/Bealine 4403 an d so on. They quickly reverted however to NS/Northeast, probably because of callsign confusion in London TMA and on ground at LHR. BZ/Albion came along c1977.