Originally Posted by
Mooncrest
Very interesting, 77, thankyou. Do you know what the 707s got up to in their later years ? I know they operated concurrently with the TriStars in the early 80s but whenever I saw one at Manchester, it was seemingly parked for hours. I thought certain routes, like the longer Mediterranean trips, would have been ideal for the 707. I noted the previous post about going to Florida via Bangor.
Don't remember the 707 much in the 80s at Manchester. The Airtours 737-200 basically operated at 54,000kgs, 130 seats so was quite efficient for the time. Loaded with pax it was about 40,000kgs leaving 14,000 kgs for fuel. Not quite enough sometimes Greek Islands or Canaries. Certainly not enough for Manchester to Banjul. That flight was 13th March 1985 via Faro for crew change and refuel. Short notice substitution for BCal.
Go anywhere, do anything those days. Unfortunately the 1985 crash at Manchester tainted the British Airtours name, hence the name change eventually to Caledonian in 1988.