A different take on Laker’s early aviation ventures comes in British Independent Airlines 1946-1976 by Tony Merton Jones,(2000).. This states that Air Charter Ltd was formed by Laker in 1947 as a general charter operator based at Croydon with Dragon Rapides,Geminis and a Dragon, plus later a Consul, and that by 1950 all but one of the fleet had been sold.
This version of events does not seem to be supported elsewhere. Fly me, I’m Freddie (Roger Eglin and Berry Ritchie, 1980 ) makes no mention of a Croydon operation. It says that Laker purchased Air Charter in 1951, as a “near moribund” airline with one aircraft but with useful tax losses. In the same year he also acquired Surrey Flying Services and Fairflight, the latter bringing in some usable airframes, in the shape of a Tudor and a Lincoln freighter. These were all merged during 1952 to operate under the Air Charter name though the aircraft remained registered to the original companies.
This latter source records that Laker originally started Aviation Traders at Bovingdon in 1947 as a spares dealer in Halifax components. The Bovingdon hangar had no aircraft access onto the airfield for aircraft and hence the move to Southend in 1948 to take advantage of the opportunities for aircraft maintenance in support of the Berlin airlift. These early days at Southend were evidently very lucrative for Laker and financed the purchase of the other companies and the expansion into Stansted. There was no further hangarage vacant at Southend whereas at Stansted there were two hangars available
Stansted was also better suited to the commercial operation of Yorks and Tudors than the grass field at Southend so it became the Air Charter UK operating base. I doubt (though I don’t know) whether there were any Air Charter operations at Southend in the early fifties other than maintenance movements. Regular ACL commercial movements at Southend began in 1955 with the start up of the car ferry operation followed in November 1956 by the Cyprus trooping contract flown by DC4s.