As Salisbury was served only once a week, it allowed the crew who likely were changed at Entebbe to return with the aircraft instead of them all stopping over for a week. The VC-10 was perfectly able to handle Hot & High departures, that is what it was designed for. The leisurely West African flight kept the same crew throughout its 4-day round trip, with all the night stops. They took a flight engineer to sign it off each morning and deal with any issues, and probably took quite an extensive spares pack just in case as well. The cabin crew were always one steward and one stewardess. I read (here, actually, some years ago) that the crew were given a different hotel at Las Palmas to the passengers. What our grandparents got up to …
All these services originated with the 1950s "aircoach" cheap rate services, by BUA's predecessors Airwork and Hunting Clan, to both East and West Africa, allowed by the government from the early 1950s, to BOAC's dismay, which operated originally with Vickers Vikings, and later Viscounts, on a very low frequency. The weekly West Africa run was handled fortnightly by the two operators, each alternating, and again the crew stayed with the aircraft all the way round. They only operated by day, in stages of less than 1,000 miles, and also night-stopped along the way. The West African one had traffic rights at the Las Palmas nightstop, which is how BUA were able to develop it as a destination in its own right.