What a lot of recollections since I last looked in !
Originally Posted by
ATNotts
Certainly is Rich International. Just seeing those tail colours remind me of the time when at MIA and I got on to the Rich ramp in the days of the C46s and DC6s. A lovely, if by the time of the DC8s somewhat dated livery. If I recall correctly the Rich DC8s did a season operating from various UK airports, possible to Orlando?
Rich did indeed run their DC8s through various UK airports in the "early" days of Florida, generally on contract to Air Florida who did an exponential expansion across the Atlantic for a short while, until bust followed boom. Air Florida only had DC-10s for long haul, so contracted them in on thinner routes and/or in the low season. Like most US charter/supplemental long haulers, much of Rich's work came from the US military, such as over to Germany. They later moved on to Tristars.
GB Airways, from Gibraltar ("Gibair"), had long had a close association with BA, leasing one of their Viscounts for the hop across the straits, but suddenly developed a substantial operation out of Gatwick, firstly to Gibraltar of course, and then both schedules and charters to various Mediterranean points. They were an early BA franchise operator, in BA full colours, and later moved on from 737s to a substantial A320 fleet. I believe they never made any money from it (bit of a Gatwick recurring story), and the owners eventually sold out to Easyjet.
Midwest Air Charter were a US operator for the overnight package companies, they used Caravelles, no cargo door, on the work. Built up quite a fleet but didn't last too long. I would guess one coming over the Atlantic was coming for a maintenance check. Caravelles would come through Gatwick from time to time, but not too many. SATA from Switzerland were a regular with student charters, Aviaco and Transeuropa both did work, especially cheap overnights, for the Intasun/Goodman business which was left over from Air Europe - Transeuropa had a couple of the very rare Caravelle 11R with a big forward cargo door, which they stripped the seats from in the off season when no holiday passengers were offered to bring in cargo, in particular early Spring potatoes from the Canary Islands. Potatoes airfreighted in a Caravelle ? No, I am not making this up
