On Court colours; I too loved the innovation. Wasn't it at Gatters, just after Court introduced all the colours when, after landing, ATC Controller remarked to a delicious variant ;" Very nice. Can I have a lick ?".
BKS changed to the Northeast yellow while I was a BKS Cadet at Oxford in 1971. It was a copy of the American outfit (almost identical) and the yellow was quite outrageous for the time. Sister company, Cambrian adopted the same style but painted their aircraft a nice, orangey colour.
I enjoyed all 12 years at Air Europe and glad I never spotted that Canadian outfit in our scheme. Would have been very painful.
Comforting to have flown the Air Europe Italy 76's after AE went down but it just wasn't the same..
And yes, in AE, we did take a couple of BA 757's in BA colours but with Air Europe written on the side. Just a summer contract and we took on six BA Captains and six F/Os who had to swap the ghastly BEA SOP's for our more natural ones. They all loved it .
Don't get me started on our semi wetlease of a Tower Air 747. All white save the Air Europe writing on the front.
When AE went bust, I shot-up to HQ in Crawley seeking to nick one or both fabbo models of a MD-11 and a B747 in the CEO-s office.
In full camouflage and use of wifey's car, in the dead of night, was destroyed to see they were already nick'd !