I recall having the Lyons 1971 brochure; I used to collect these from travel agents as the only source of holiday flights. The Comet schedule was on a separate white paper insert to the main colour brochure, must have been arranged very late. As I recall there were separate departure points for each of the airworthy aircraft, in the traditional 'all to the same place on the same day' format - was Gatwick another base ? Must have been very challenging to introduce such a new fleet and crews, let alone one per base, and I wonder how much BEA helped them to facilitate the sale. Hadn't heard a Channel Comet operated from Berlin, this being the Trident territory, and not the Lyons contract. I believe the second Trident being robbed for spares at Stansted all season was because they could get no credit from either Hawker Siddeley or Rolls-Royce, and it was cash with order - possibly the Comet spares were sourced through BEA as part of the initial support package.
I did vaguely see something subsequently that one of the two remaining to the end Channel One-Elevens were somehow in use on this Lyons work as well. Was this from Gatwick ?
I have written before that August 1971 we were departing from Manchester (Wardair 707 to Vancouver, if interested). On the next stand was a Channel Comet for Palma, with the most dilapidated paint scheme on a service aircraft I ever saw. The old Olympic scheme had been roughly (possibly hand) overpainted with the minimum of paint, not in quite the right shades of blue and white, so the old scheme could be made out, then the Channel name in their ex-Continental font put over the top of everything. There was further patchwork as needed all around.
Did BEA ever actually get all their money for the aircraft ?