Originally Posted by
WHBM
The BKS/Northeast Viscount 800s were all ex-BEA mainstream fleet I believe, unlike their predecessor Viscount 700s, which BKS had picked up round and about on the secondhand market. Ultimately they were merged back in, with the ones which had stayed in the mainline fleet all along, into the BA fleet, and lasted there into the early 1980s, when they were finally withdrawn, and then sold as a job lot to British Air Ferries at Southend, where they put in further work for the best part of another 10 years.
It was in the early-1980s that I had a business trip (non-aviation) for a week in Southend, and stayed in the hotel right by the runway 06 threshold. Each afternoon that week a different one of these Viscounts, just the BA name painted out, would turn up, ferrying in from Cardiff. I guess the crew must have spent each morning going by train or taxi over to Cardiff, getting the aircraft ready, and bringing each one back.
I did a Gatwick - Rotterdam trip with BAF in a Viscount but I failed to note the date however it must have been later than '81 (possbly even late '80s);because for some reason I stopped keeping my log of passenger flights.
I do remember 2 or 3 trips in the GB Airways Viscount from Tangier to Gib (complete with kids
standing in front of their parents) however from '81 to '87.
I also remember that on the Rotterdam flight, having done several trips in Tridents and 737s, what luxury it was to sit next to one of those huge oval windows of a Viscount compared to jet airfliners. .