BMA DC-9 fleet
re: post from Bean
Out of the Five DC9's BMA operated between 1976 and 1983 (they never operated more than three at a time) only one came from finnair operated from 1977 to 79 and only two wore US registrations One pending British certification of the type and one on a short summer lease in 1978.
some small corrections and the full BMA DC9 history to 1985 below.......
BMA crewed during the finnair leases whether painted up in BMA colours or not -
BMA Flight deck and cabin crews flew the ship and we carried a finnair engineer spanner around all day on the jump seat - he was based at LPL or MME depending on where that a/c based for that period.
OH-LYC & LYD were both leased from FINNAIR in their colours and then painted in full BMA colours 1983 but neither got a UK regn
OH-LYA & LYB were twice leased in Finnair and then in full BMA colours 1977-79 returned, and then eventually became G-BMAH/G-BMAI in 1983
(LYB was allocated regn G-BGWP in 1979 but ntu)
we leased N48075 (from Southern, ex KLM PH-DNF) in full BMA colours in 1978 whilst BMA's first DC-9, N65358 (obtained in 1976) was in Amsterdam for some certification work prior to allocation of its British regn G-BFIH (then G-BMAA in 1980)
G-BMAB and G-BMAC both came from TWA in 1979/80
G-BMAC was then leased for 9 months in 1982 to Best Airlines in the USA
G-BMAG came from KLM in 1982 ex PH-DNB
during my time with BMA at LHR 1977-1985
G-BMAA/B/C G/H/I
all six baby 9's were operating together by 1982/3
PLUS two DC 9-32 came along as well in early 1984 (built for East African)
G-BMAK/BMAM
the names then were:
Darley dale
Dove dale (always on BMA's first DC9)
Ulster
Merseyside
some other short DC9 leases included Martinair DC9-33RC PH-MAO 1981 and PH-MAX
KLM DC9-15 PH-DNC Dec 1984
in winter 1982/3 G-AXCP Dan Air 1-11 401 was leased for a few months to fly the MME-LHR route with BMA titles
Last edited by rog747; 1st Dec 2015 at 13:57.