Not particularly historic, but I had some very good service from Speedbird London somwhere back in the late '80s or early '90s. We had taken our Albert out to Belize to repatriate some poor Army chaps who'd died in a truck crash. On the way back across the pond, it became obvious that Lyneham and the rest of England was going to be out in fog, and (after consultation with Grope/Ascart Ops) we elected to divert to Leuchars. As it was the evening of 23rd December, and we all wanted to get home for Christmas, Grope gave us permission to leave the aircraft at Leuchars (once suitable arrangements had been made for our 'passengers') and find our own way south.
Having used Speedbird to transmit a few messages before, I thought they might be able to help us out. So I called them up and asked if there was any way we could get seats on the first southbound shuttle from Edinburgh on Christmas Eve. They said they'd do what they could.
On arrival at Turnhouse at around 2am, courtesy of the duty driver at Leuchars and a very tired old Sherpa van, we were met by the BA Duty Manager, who apologised profusely for the lack of better accommodation and offered us a quiet few seats in a lounge to get our heads down while we waited. We were woken at ETD minus about 15 minutes, and escorted to the front end of the waiting 757 and whisked back to Heathrow for a CAT 3 landing, with a fine breakfast en route.
What fantastic service and helpfulness from Speedbird London and all of BA that day! Nothing was too much trouble, and everything worked like a charm. I still have no idea who paid for the tickets!
Shame they couldn't have dropped us at Lyneham; the transport (which wasn't allowed to leave LYE until we'd confirmed we were on the ground at LHR) took 4 hours to reach us, and a further 4 to get home!