Originally Posted by
rog747
Following on from Dan Air's ex BOAC Comet 4 Ops post, the story of poor old Channel Airways' Comet fleet is here -
Channel Airways – Comets Operated
G-APMB 6422
G-APYC 6437
G-APYD 6438
G-APZM 6440
G-ARDI 6447
G-APDR 6418 Bought for spares only
Channel Airways won a lucrative IT contract in April 1969 to provide holiday charter services for Lyon Tours (Colne) for the 1970, 71 and 72 holiday seasons.
The airline urgently needed additional aircraft – Indeed it was a condition of the charterers contract that Jet aircraft be made available.
Channel Airways' inability to raise sufficient funds to pay for the outstanding BAC One-Eleven (1 of) and Trident (3 of) orders that were placed with the aircraft's manufacturers during the second half of the 1960s left it with no spare capacity to take on additional charter contracts during the peak summer season, such as the award of the major new 1970 Lyons Tours contract.
The only way the airline was able to fulfil its contractual obligations towards Lyons under these circumstances was to acquire five ex-BEA Comet 4B series and this resulted in a significant increase in its charter capacity bought at a low cost.
Coincidentally both BEA and Olympic Airways were at this time in the process of phasing out their Comet 4Bs.
Of Olympics' aircraft – SX-DAK and SX-DAL had been wholly owned by the Greek carrier and SX-DAN and SX-DAO had been on long term lease from BEA.
All had been sold or returned to BEA pending their disposal and they were stored for many months at Cambridge.
Channel Airways bought five 4Bs – the 4 aircraft used by Olympic, and the ex-BEA G-APMB.
It was reported that Channel paid under £2 million for the 5 – a price that included spares and initial technical assistance.
So as to be ready for the 1970 season the first two Comets were delivered to Channel on 26th January 1970.
These ex-Olympic aircraft were re-registered with their original registrations G-APYC and G-APYD respectively.
The ex-BEA owned aircraft G-ARDI (once SX-DAO) was delivered in April and G-APZM (once SX-DAN) was delivered in May.
All the Comets were converted to seat 109 passengers but were otherwise little different from their BEA days.
Channel even retained the basic livery of British European – only adding the Channel Airways titles and painting out the Corporations red squares!
With the ex-Olympic aircraft even less was done – the aircraft had the dark blue fin around Olympic Rings painted out in black.
Channel planned to phase out the Comets after the 1972 season and for their third season of the contract to change their trading title to Air England.
The original contract, however was not renewed and no Comets were ever to carry the Air England title or livery.
The Comets operated mainly from STN BHX MAN and also from both of the West Berlin Airports.
In September 1970, a consortium of three West German tour operators awarded Channel Airways lucrative contracts to carry holidaymakers from West Berlin to the Mediterranean. These were worth £11 million per annum and resulted in the opening of a base at the Tegel Airport, where two aircraft – a Trident and a One-Eleven were stationed from March 1971 to operate more than 50 weekly round-trips during the peak summer season.
Following the induction of the Comet into Channel Airways' fleet, the airline began using Comets and Tridents from Tempelhof Airport as the airport's runways had been extended to about 7,000'. These flights were additional to Channel's flying programme from its West Berlin base at Tegel.
By 1971 there were further problems with spare parts to support the growing jet fleet.
Lack of spares for Comets and Tridents had caused major disruptions and huge delays to the 1971 summer charter programme.
To ensure adequate access to spares to continue flying its Comets, Channel Airways acquired a Comet 4 G-APDR.
The airline's inability to pay for a sufficient spares inventory to keep all its aircraft flying during the peak summer season in 1971 also resulted in one of its two Tridents having its engines removed to keep the other one flying; this aircraft sat idly on the ground at Stansted for much of the summer season to enable its Tegel-based sister aircraft to continue flying German holidaymakers until the end of the season.
Channel Airways many problems of 1971 continued with maintenance and in obtaining spares that caused insurmountable loss in both money and Contracts.
During the first week of December 1971, Channel Airways sold both of its 139 seat Trident 1Es to BEA to counter the increase in unit costs resulting from low utilisation of these aircraft. The aircraft was leased to BEA's Newcastle-based regional subsidiary Northeast Airlines, who already flew 2 of the cancelled original order of 5 for Channel Airways.
In early 1972, former Channel Airways director Captain Peter Lockwood acquired a pair of ex-American Airlines BAC One-Eleven 400s for his new charter company, Orientair, to take over Channel's lucrative German charter contracts.
When Orientair's plan to assume Channel Airways' position in Berlin ran into difficulties, Dan-Air took over these contracts, resulting in an expansion of that airline's Berlin operation.
So apart from buying ex-BOAC Comet 4 – G-APDR – which was only used for spares, Channel retired early the Comet 4B G-ARDI in September 1971, then sold to Dan Air for spares, and was broken up at Southend during 1972 - the only Comet ever to fly in to SEN.
Channel ran into more severe financial difficulties and in 1972 the Stansted maintenance base was closed.
Channel passed into the hands of the receiver in Feb 1972.
The Channel Comet fleet were sold to Dan Air London.
A very informative post Rog and although I was aware of most of what you have written one thing that I wasn't aware of was the fact that Channel Airways intended to change their name to Air England.