Ah, H49, I was hoping you would have something to contribute to this thread! The Britannia 737 ops must have been on the marginal, but obviously legal, side before the runway was extended. But, Britannia proved the runway was useable; evidently, Air Europe, Monarch, Orion and Dan-Air all agreed as they came along with their own Advanced 737s prior to November 1984. Before all this, Aer Lingus was a regular user with its standard 737s but these were flying a much shorter distance with perhaps fewer passengers so landing and takeoff performances would have been less of an issue.
Speaking of Monarch, I wonder how their 1-11 500s and Boeing 720Bs would have coped with the pre-extension LBA runway ? The 1-11 500 was no stranger to LBA but usually only on occasional charters or British Airways diversions from Manchester. Being a rather heavy and underpowered beast, I doubt if a fully-laden 1-11 would have even been able to reach Palma without a refuelling stop en route. The 720B, I don't know. Only one example has ever visited, pre-extension and from and to Paris so not significantly heavy. Hardly any passengers either. Academic anyway as standard parking might have proved tricky with only six stands available, all self-manouevering.
As well as the afternoon ops that H49 references above, it was common for both Monarch and Britannia to schedule late evening rotations through LBA in the summer months. Typically, either airline would schedule an LBA arrival at 2035, a one hour turnaround and departure at 2135. I believe this was to facilitate as late a departure as possible, allow for up to 10 minutes grace on the STD for ATC slots and another 15 minutes up to the airfield closing time of 2200. I don't remember any of these being beaten by the curfew.
Last edited by Mooncrest; 28th Nov 2020 at 19:55.