Hearsay was, in the early 90's, that the founding fathers of Airtours International (AIH) were a handful of MD83 type rated pilots and assorted managers. The wives of the founding fathers held a competition to decide the callsign, Dave Wilmot's wife came up with 'Kestrel' and won. So the rumour was.
To confirm this, you would need to check with those recruited by Airtours in the winter of 91; they were nearly all MD83 type rated (but not all), and would have done Long Beach MD courses and line trained on empty sectors.
There may be some left at TCX from those days, Rex Taylor comes to mind, but most likely all retired by now - Tom Beck perhaps and his generation.