BKS services from Leeds Bradford

[Mooncrest]

Does anyone know which routes this company flew with its Viscounts from LBA prior to the change of name to Northeast ? I know Northeast operated, at various times, Amsterdam, Belfast, Dublin, Guernsey, Jersey and London Heathrow. Maybe Paris Orly as well.

Thankyou.

[Flightwatch]

I flew the LBA services for BKS from 1/67 to 6/70. You have pretty much covered the scheduled routes, the AMS flight extended to DUS as well. There were some regular charters too, mainly for Wallace Arnold, the local
IT company which made it's name through coach holidays. The only one I remember as a regular was OST which turned up every summer. Many of the Channel Isles were largely full of their passengers.

ORY was certainly served around three times a week routing NCL-LBA-ORY and v.v. Interestingly we did 5 daily LHR rotations with 355 seats daily, BA currently offer 429 seats on 3 inconveniently timed flights with load factors that appear to be very low by my observation!

Other than that I don't think I can add to our list although MME-LBA seemed like a scheduled service after fog diversions. Also I think that after the formation of BAS some of the BFS flights were operated via LPL.

[Mooncrest]

Thankyou Flightwatch. I'd forgotten the Dusseldorf extension to the Amsterdam service. I knew BKS/Northeast had their operational HQ at Newcastle but wasn't aware their Paris service stopped off at LBA. I don't suppose a Trident ever did the honours there on account of the shorter LBA runway back then.

By the way, I believe the present day LBA-LHR service is improving by the day, fog and CAT 1 ILS permitting !

[Flightwatch]

BKS' administrative offices were in Seymour Mews, London until moved to Hounslow when BAS was set up. The ops center was in Building 224, Heathrow north side, conveniently close to the Vanguard Club! LBA and NCL had equal status as out stations.

Not only did the Trident never put in an appearance but neither did the Britannia either, I have been perilously close to the far threshold, particularly landing 15 with a wet surface in a 748 never mind a T1E.

The Paris service was done by the Ambassador until their retirement in '69 and then by Viscount, if memory serves it was to LBG until after my time there.

I arrived just after the original wooden passenger terminal had burnt down and an old WW II hanger had been rapidly adapted to serve. Our crew room was a shed tacked on to the side of the maintenance hanger who's floor blew up as soon as the crosswinds went above limits (frequently).

It was all great fun and a fantastic start in aviation for a 200hr cadet fresh from Training School. 23.5k hours and nearly 1/2 a century later I wish I could do it all over again.