Bit late on parade , but was posted to KT73s LGW from BAW73s LHR in Jan '87.
Was a mix of mainline schedules with Speedbird c/s , and KT trips with Airtours c/s . Liveries slightly different , which confused pax when a sched and charter were at the same destination ..... Airtours a/c doing sched and Mainline a/c doing charter !
All were B737-236s with JT8-15A engines , +- 15500lbs thrust .
Leased in during my time was AE G-DDDV , lovely Collins 'Flying Banana' flight director . But not a 73 ADV with modern auto pilot Flight Director system with Auto land . Co pilot just used control wheel steering auto pilot , leveled off and engaged height lock . No lock on to lateral navigation or ILS either .
DV then went to mainly Gibair routes and stickers .
Was at LGW for the merger with BCAL in '88 , when we [B. Airtours ] became Caledonian , with a couple of 73s in Cale livery .
Returned to Cale Tristars in '96 , all -100s and 25 yrs old [ thrust bumped and wts increased ] apart from AJ [unk] , stayed as a -1 [ she'd overrun at LBA , and probably got a bit stressed ] . Occasional rent in of Peach air a/c [ some of which were old BA anyway ] , some being -50s .
Airtours pilots and F/Es volunteered from Mainline BA , or temp. posted . '97-'98 Cale started to recruit their own crews as were leaving the BA fold . A320s [ think only flown by Cale crews not BA ] , DC-10s , then Tristar who we trained before leaving back to mainline .
rgds condor