Originally Posted by
WHBM
Quick flick through the brain cells gives me very few widebodies within Europe. I can only recall a B Cal Charter DC-10 in 1983 Gatwick-Faro (plus seeing up close the intact Lockheed Constellation adjacent to the terminal there, used as a bar). An end-of-season trip on Monarch, to Palma, which had been out on a 757 but returned on an A300, bringing back among others over 50 of the tour company reps for whom the year's work was finished. And I suppose I can count a ski trip about 1990 on a Swissair A310 Heathrow to Zurich.
One Wednesday, changeover day in Fuerteventura, when it was still a somewhat obscure destination, there was much of the LTU widebody fleet; Tristars and MD-11. Our Monarch 757 at the end looked quite puny in comparison.
LTU certainly had the Oomph in using big jets for the German sun seekers - Their Tristars lined up at RHO, LPA, or PMI was the norm.
They started their fleet in 1973, seen along with Court Line's pair of 400 seaters.
These first ones had built in rear air stairs to enable IT flights to holiday airports which back then had seen nothing bigger than a 707 or DC-8, and had little ground handling equipment at that time suitable for such large planes. Baggage was bulk loaded - no ULD's were used, but these Tristars had built in baggage conveyors at the hold doors to enable swifter bag loading for the ramp guys.
In 1977 LTU obtained 3 of the new a/c built that PSA had NTU, these Tristars had forward air stairs, LTU made use of these at remote outstations.
They lost one of the 3 in 1991 at DUS in a Hangar Fire.
For some reason, LTU did not take the ex Court Line pair which had languished at Luton from August 1974 until they were sold to CX in late 1977.
LTU had a deal from the start with Eastern AL to take some of their L1011 fleet on sale/lease back. This arrangement continued until EAL's demise in 1991.
4 new MD-11's were obtained by LTU for winter 1991, then ordered some of the first new A330-300's for the winter season 1994 (both types were in a very high density with over 400 seats) For the Canary Islands, High Season there was the winter months for Germans and Scandinavians.
Condor, of course started the IT wide body race in 1971 with their 2 new 747's that would go to Palma or down to Colombo, either short or long haul was what they did.
Other 747's used on say Palma or Las Palmas were KLM, Sabena, Aer Lingus, and SAS/Scanair.
BOAC flew 747's for the summer peaks of 1971 and 1972 LHR to Palma.
Laker DC-10's appeared, along with Finnair and Martinair, both being early DC-10 30 operators who would use them widely on IT.s
8 BA's Tristars were fully on-stream by summer 1975 and BA would use them on popular peak holiday destinations.
The Germans and Scandinavians had been flying long haul from the early 1970's to the beaches of the Gambia, Ceylon, Thailand, Florida, and Mombasa.
LTU, Condor, plus Sterling using Caravelles and 727's, even Bavaria and Paninternational with their 1-11 500's were flying to these far away places.
African Safari Airways of Basel (was formed from Globe Air) were a very early operator to Mombasa. They first used Britannia's from 1967, then DC-8's.
ASA owned their own hotels on the Kenya coast.
Long haul charter package beach holidays for us UK Brits en-masse though was still a long way off.
However, back in 1973
Court Line commence package holiday charters with the Tristar to The Caribbean.
Court Line's own Halcyon Hotels were built on St Lucia, Antigua and the Bahamas.
Monarch then flew their 720B's to St Lucia, with a tech stop usually in the Azores, I think picking up this business after Clarkson's collapse in 1974.
Thomson Skytours flying Britannia Airways 707C's had a brief foray to selling holidays in 1971 to Montego Bay Jamaica, but this was not that successful, despite the exotic names of Runaway bay and Ocho Rios.
I don't recall any other long haul charter package holidays from the UK at that time,
but if anyone does then do please comment.
There was, as we all know, plenty of summer charter traffic from the UK to the USA and Canada at that time,
but I really want to know about any beach destinations.
I suppose the Gambia does count of course. Britannia 737's and BCAL 707's would fly there from very early on.
It would be the late 1980's before we would start seeing the versatile charter 757's of Monarch, Air 2000, and Air Europe go off to Mombasa, Goa, Maldives, Mexico, Caribbean, Thailand, and of course Florida.
From winter 1987 Paramount Airways flew MD-83's to Goa, with split passenger loads from BRS via Gatwick - Rhodes - Sharjah, to Goa.
Virgin Atlantic's first 747 LGW-MCO flights from summer 1988 were actually charters, flown twice a week for Virgin and Thomson Holidays sharing allocations.