Originally Posted by
WHBM
The weekly West African One-Eleven flight was longstanding, from back with BUA's predecessors Airwork and Hunting-Clan in the early 1950s, when it had been allowed as a low fare competitor to BOAC with Vickers Viking aircraft, which had a range of about 800nm, if that. Working up through Viscounts to One-Elevens, it varied the route in B Cal times, but the classic was Gatwick-Lisbon-Las Palmas, where there was a nightstop, then next day Las Palmas-Bathurst-Freetown-Accra-Lagos. Overnight turnround, back the same. Later variants included Casablanca instead of Lisbon, and the night stop moved further down into Africa.
It was a four day round trip, and a real blast for otherwise European-based One-Eleven crews. The same crew handled the trip throughout. Cabin was always one steward and one stewardess, plus they carried a flight engineer who signed the aircraft off each morning and handled as many snags as they could. A significant spares pack was loaded in the hold. Following some "issues" the crew hotel at the both-ways Las Palmas nightstop was made different to the pax one !
It was really useful as almost all W African Countries ran flights only back to Europe - and normally to their old "colonial" Capital. A friend of mine worked for Medicine sans Frontiers. He was based in the main hospital in Kinshasa but also operated in the Brazzaville General Hospital across the river - he could see it from his Kinshasa Office. When thing turned sticky between the 2 countries he had to fly to Brussels, then to Paris and pick up a flight to Brazzaville- 4 days rather than an hour................... People in Ouagadougou had the same problems - no direct flights to Lagos for example - faster via Paris.