Welcome back British Caledonian?

[A300Man]

Overheard some "media types" (apologies to those in the industry) at a function at LHR last night discussing the strong possibility that BA will re-introduce the Britsh Caledonian Airways brand name (not just "Caledonian" this time) to selected UK and European regional operations?

Does anyone at BA have any information which would confirm or deny this?

I know that the amalgamated commuter operation has been named CitiExpress. Perhaps that name is to be replaced???

Plus......there was a lot of talk about Virgin A340-600's.........when do these actually come online? Seemed to be some confusion last night.

[Bob Brown]

Who remembers when BA and B-Cal merged. They immediately renamed Airtours as Caledonian to improve their image. Seems like they need an image boost again!

[jmc757]

I haven't heard about this, but i have a question. Who owns the rights to the name. JMC own the "Caledonian" name, so is it them or BA that have the claim over British Caledonian??

Probably a stupid question, but i thought i'd ask it anyway

[Bob Brown]

From Companies House:

Name & Registered Office :
BRITISH CALEDONIAN AIRWAYS LIMITED
WATERSIDE
PO BOX 365
HARMONDSWORTH
UB7 0GB
Status :Active

I guess BA do!

[flystarboy]

I do believe jmc own the right to use certain brand names from the Bcal/caledonian days

A companay in scotland was trying to name their airline Caledonian Wings offering clansman service on board and using the princess mary tartan. These were deemed to be"brands" and the company were threated with legal action if they went ahead. i dont think BA will be able to use the name Caledonian as that is still owned in name only by jmc. Nothing to stop them using British Caledonian I guess..... but it is a bit similar

[Trislander]

I have been asking the same question about the re-introduction of Caledonian by BA for ages. I posted a thread earlier this year with the same question after a heard a rumour. Sounds like it is beginning to come together now then.

Tri

[Engineer]

BA hold the right to BRITISH CALEDONIAN AIRWAYS LIMITED company number 00233961 Status :Active
and Thomas Cook hold the right to CALEDONIAN AIRWAYS (SERVICES) LIMITED company number 02224576 Status :Proposal to Strike off

So BA can reintroduce
B-Cal (http://www.british-caledonian.com/)
a web site that will bring memories flooding back to certain members. Enjoy

[LIMA OR ALPHA JUNK]

Engineer is probably correct but I thought a Mrs Carlson of the huge US travel firm Carlson now owns the rights to the Caledonian name. Carlson sold out their share some while back so God knows what she is going to do with the rights if she does own them still.

As for Bcal - what a great airline in its heyday. If it is to be re-introduced, I hope BA do it justice.

[Bucking Bronco]

BA may own the B-Cal Brand but what use would it be to reintroduce it save for operations out of Scotland?

Surely BA wouldn't rebrand out of MAN or BHX as they already have the BA brand present there. B-Cal would hold no obvious advantages as quite frankly the B-Cal brand has been forgotten by most of the public and is only clung onto by a few die-hard anoraks - Lima being one of them.

As for "BA doing it justice", they did when they saved an ailing airline and its employees from going under. And from what I understand some B-Cal employees ie pilots did very well in terms of seniority when the companies "merged". I think the brand should be left where it is - on a piece of paper shoved in a dark drawer and not on the side of an aeroplane.:p

[LIMA OR ALPHA JUNK]

Ah there you BB. I was wondering when that stone would be turned over by someone and you would re-appear from under it. BA bought BCAL by outbidding SAS at the time. Perhaps a bit before your time you young rookie you ! So to say it was done to save BCAL is a little unfair.

Perhaps a new image is what BA needs - £180m wasn't it this financial year ? People in glass houses and all that !

[canberra]

my first flight on an airliner was a bcal 1-11 from gatwick to raf luqa in 77. bcal did welfare flights from gutersloh to gatwick when i was stationed there. when exercise lionheart took place in 84 they were one of the airlines used to bring the troops in. at the end of the ex bcal donated a stewardesses kilt in each of the tartans they used, if i remember righly it was 12 tartans, i wonder where they went when gutersloh was handed over to the army? and ba donated 2 ties!

[A300Man]

Ba purchased the brand rights of B Cal from the Thomas Cook / Carlson group 16 months ago apparently.

Like some of you, don't know what good it would be to introduce the name again at this stage. Most have forgotten.

However, never say never

[Flightrider]

British Airways has always owned the rights to the British Caledonian (and its forerunner Caledonian) name. It was part of the sale agreement between British Airways and Inspirations (as then was) that Inspirations could continue to use the name Caledonian Airways to cover the charter operation (which, of course, was formerly known as British Airtours). That agreement continued when Carlson took over Inspirations. BA has never sold the rights but it has leased them.

Right, history lesson over.

The particular problem which BA has is that its costbase at Gatwick in particular is high in proportion to the revenue that it can earn on those routes. One possibility was to mutate the Gatwick operation into a low-cost operation. BA seemed to think that, just by removing meals from flights, selling more tickets over the internet and removing ability to interline bags etc, it could generate a low cost base at Gatwick to compete with easyJet et al.

And then the Brands brigade at Waterside got involved. An almighty row arose over what to call such an airline. After all, said Brands, we cannot have BA written on the side of the aircraft at Gatwick but not offer the full BA service. Heaven forfend that a BA passenger couldn't have Airmiles, they said, access to a nice exec lounge with waterfalls and odours of freshly-cut grass pumped into the atmosphere around the door, hugely expensive coffee machines which you need an engineering degree to get a cappucino out of....you get my drift.

And so what do you then call a Gatwick low-cost operation? Perhaps revive a name which half of the British public thinks is still around, instantly recognisable and which actually used to do a half-decent job of running an airline at Gatwick by knowing the Gatwick market and focusing on the operation. [I.e. avoiding the neolithic incompetence with which BA runs the present-day operation.] The concept of reviving the BCal name was therefore mooted but I don't know if anything ever came of it.

[tailscrape]

Lima,

Right on! BB seems to have a twisted view of events.

I had a few glasses of wine with a former BCAL Skipper a few months ago. A thoroughly nice chap. Very entertaining!!!

If only his son were such a consummate flyer and wine drinker!

Regards.

The sh?t stirring Tailscraper.

[Copenhagen]

Flightrider, your airline sounds like CityFlyer, a company that focused on Gatwick, and was profitable.

[Bucking Bronco]

Back from a couple of days in the sun and pleasing to find that the two love birds Lima & Tailscrape are mutually appreciating each other once again.

BA outbid SAS for B-Cal at the time? Ask yourself if neither of those airlines was prepared to put in an offer (at a time when companies were trying to grow inorganically) for B-Cal what would have happened? From my recollection B-Cal was ham strung by powerful millitant unions in all areas of the workforce (particularly engineering) and that it was perilously close to folding.

Now being an ex army brat I had the pleasure of flying B-Cal many times to Germany and Hong Kong. It was a nice airline in its day but things didn't work out and it is no longer here - why dig up the name? Recently Pan Am started flying again but guess what? It remains a tin pot outfit that is not even a shadow of its former immense glory. Consumers are fickle by nature. What chance does B-Cal have save for tiny operations out of Scotland where patriotism can be taken advantage of?

I await your responses TS and Junk.

ps TS when you had the wine and chat with the B-Cal skipper a couple of months ago did the old boy ask you,"Do you like to see grown men work out? Ever seen the inside of a Turkish Prison? Do you watch films on Gladiators?"

:eek: :D :p ;) :cool:

[LIMA OR ALPHA JUNK]

Bucking Bronco,

If BCAL was so crap then why didnt BA let them go the wall ? Why would they outbid SAS to buy them ? I remember Lord King saying at the time that if you wanted something, sometimes you had to pay a little more for it.

Its a shame that you talk about a time when you were just out of your dypers and have no recollection of, with such authority.

Does the word "BUMPTIOUS" ring a bell ?

Get back to your lobby (or is it closet ?)

[Bucking Bronco]

BCal was bought for its routes and slots. Politics and the smaller SAS purse was always going to mean that BA got BCal. The fact was that the company was on its knees financially and if BA had let them go then the slots would have gone to some other (new) airlines, BA wanted to build a presence at LGW. You may have been around at the time Grandpa but you obviously were wearing rose tinted spectacles.

The point of this thread was substantiating the rumour and perhaps a gentile discussion of the merits/relevance of the BCal brand. Perhaps you could partake in that instead of cruising for victims (old habits eh?) on which to impart your boring history lessons.

I noticed that you had taken quite a sabbatical from the forums - how refreshing. Did it take you all that time to find bumptious? Thank the lord you settled at B! I have many words in my armoury as well but chose not to.

Look forward to reading your comments

Cheers
:cool:

[LIMA OR ALPHA JUNK]

Yawn yawn,

Who's gonna buy your airline then ? Cos from how it looks, its going the same way as BCAL isn't it ? Stones and glass houses comes to mind again !

Oh - and the presence at LGW. Is that the operation that is being run into the ground because BA can't make it pay ?

And before the lectures on insults, it might hold you in good stead to read back over your posts and see who threw the first mud here.

Go and play with Piperpilot you tiresome creature.

[Bucking Bronco]

Mr Junk,

Who is going to buy BA? Interesting one, no one. Branson said a few years ago that he would buy BA if the share price went to £3.00 - it ain't happened. Like so many people - just full of hot air. BA's cash reserves remain high, we still have plenty of silverware to sell and I've been carrying full loads. The share price I'm afraid is a reflection of the announcement that dividends will be low/non existant, disposal of some of our assets, concerns over the middle east and the general downturn in the equities market (or did you miss that). No one has got the cash/leverage to buy us at the moment and we do not need saving, we just need to get rid of 20,000 staff who do not pull their weight.

BA's LGW operation is not being run into the ground, it is merely being scaled back, "we are still committed to operations from Gatwick". There was, and still remains, duplications in flights with LHR that need to be addressed eg JFK and ARN. When these are finally addressed and BA uses LGW as a point to point (typically leisure travel) airport as opposed to developing a second London hub - it will become profit making.

:)

BA has never made a pilot redundant in its history; unlike some other operators who continually furlough (American outfits) or offer summer contracts (UK Charters). I feel a lot safer in my warm, bright, glass house than the rickety, damp, draughty shed inhabited by some of my comrades.

As for going to play with Piperpilot I don't think so. For a start he's not old enough to drink and given his immature views I don't think that we would get on. I would have thought that perhaps you could say hello to him next time you, tailscrape and Pp meet up in mud slingers anonymous. All you ever seem to do is trawl/cruise the forum for peole to insult - just think of how many people you have upset and thus will no longer contribute to this excellent site.

By the way, you are in the distinct advantage of knowing my employer whereas I do not know yours. However I will refrain from the insult trading that you enjoy so much and stick to the point of the thread - what relevance is the BCal brand in todays market? I don't think it has a place 'save in Scotland', if you think it does then please tell me why, you never know I may agree with you and change my mind - I'm not stubborn and pig headed.

:D

Please answer the question and keep to the subject or I shall be forced to withdrawal my presence from this thread. I am sorry but I don't wish to turn this into a BA bashing thread or a personal insult tennis match.

:rolleyes:

Kind regards

Bucking Bronco

[LIMA OR ALPHA JUNK]

Not going to waste my time and phone bill replying to that drivel.

The only bit of sense in that whole post was your threat to remove yourself from the thread. Please carry that out and go away and play elsewhere (a motorway may be appropriate).

You are the one with a history of flame wars and condescending attempts at teaching people how to spell. Take a look in the mirror pal - Lucifer is its name.

[Bucking Bronco]

You already have.

:rolleyes:

Flamewars? Moi? A few less than you Beelzebab. Where is your Gimp TS? He's not usually far behind you!

BB "Bring out the Gimp"
Junk "Gimps sleepin'"
BB "Well I guess you gonna have to wake him up now won't you?"
(Que the music)

Now will the defendant please answer the Prosecution's legitimate question, "what relevance is the BCal brand in todays market?"

:cool:

[A300Man]

Boys, Boys,

Perhaps when you two have grown up and have stopped wasting valuable column inches on drivel (both), perhaps someone could assist me with my original thread - i.e. is B Cal coming back? (in name form only). Does anyone know anything about this?

Thanks ever so much.