Old British airline callsigns
 

One for the more senior members. Does anyone know what callsigns were used in the seventies by the likes of BKS, Northeast, Air Anglia and the original BIA ? Did they just use the airline names, phonetic two-letter designators or just the aircraft registration ? I'm interested because I'm not old enough to remember and I didn't have access to the airbands at the time.

Thankyou.:ok:

I believe that BIA callsign was"Brit Island"

....and Northeast was "Albion"

The Northeast Tridents which operated into Heathrow used "Norjet" I believe, but I stand to be corrected. Way back in those days many a/c used registration numbers rather than flight numbers..

BKS - I can't recall BKS (Barnby Keegan Stevens) flight numbers, only reggies.
Northeast - NE - 'Norjet' / 'NorProp' (?)/ 'Albion' Tridents/Viscounts
Air Anglia - AQ -'Air Anglia'
BIA - 'BritIsland'
I think I need to go up into the loft.........I'm sure that there is a de-code up there fom the early seventies. Funny how one forgets having used them on the Ambers every day (Sector 7/13.....!) Reggies went out when stored FPLs came in. Saved having to refile after an aircraft change.

Boynefly:

Don`t think "Albion" was exclusively Northeast.....I remember it briefly being used when I was in Scotland for what I had previously called "Beeline", i.e Viscounts and Budgies.

BKS was, er, 'BKS' wasn't it?
Beeline was BEA of course.

....or ' Beekayess' as it appeared in the documents...

A correction to info above if I may - Air Anglia's radio callsign was "Anglia".

I can remember the BKS Ambassador service from Belfast calling up as "BKS November Fox"
NS

Not nearly as far back, in the early 90's was Excalibur Airways. Their callsign initially was "Camelot" but they had to change it as apparently the word in french is offensive. I know its not old but members of my generation will remember this one...probably:)

Not old, but how did Excel end up with "Exbow" or whatever it is?

One that's not so old but not heard anymore = "Birmex" for Birmingham European/Maersk UK.

Do Bmi Regional still use "Granite"?

All two letter codes back then
IIRC BKS (BK) was Barnaby, Keegan & Stevens
OU = Autair also used the last 2 letters of the reg.
BY = Britannia
BE = Beeline BEA just used the registration, as did BA = BOAC
RS = Ascot
RR = Rafair (remember details passed as "a military twin Jet" "Roger, Dominie")
BM = BMA (Midland)
PA = Pan Am

and many more, now forgotten. I think we had to learn the whole book back in the 1960s when I started at LATCC:zzz:

PA = Pan Am = "Clipper"

No it wasn't. It was like Talkdownman said.

Re Northeast...I'm pretty sure than when the Viscounts were doing the Leeds-Liverpool-Belfast Aldergrove service in the 1970's the callsign 'Norjet' was used. When the yellow/grey/white colour scheme was introduced the aircraft were nicknamed 'banana boats' but this might have been a scouse thing! Personally I always liked that colour scheme, which was also applied to Cambrian but substituting a magenta like colour for the yellow.

Spiney.

"Albion" for Northeast. That's quite imaginitive. Wonder where the yellow folks came up with that one ? It's more original than "Northeast" if nothing else. I find it difficult to imagine the Viscount flights using the "Speedbird" c/s when the Northeast aircraft were repainted in the BA colours. Much as I love the old aeroplane it just doesn't strike me as a speeding bird !
BKS is a little before my time so I'll take anyone's word on that. British Island clearly used the same c/s when the company reappeared in the early eighties. As for Air Anglia, what could be simpler ?
Dan Air I do remember. Just Dan Air plus an alpha-numeric suffix that bore absolutely no relation to the flight number (scheduled flights only). DAB6ER was LBA-GLA, flight number DA064, I think. Something to do with a never- ending experiment into minimising callsign confusion.
Oh dear, now I sound like a perfect anorak. Back to the pills for me...:{
Seriously, thankyou for all the replies so far.;)

Golf Bravo Zulu. KG was used by Orion Airways. I don't know if they made it to three-letter designators before Britannia got hold of them. Monarch's two-letter designator was OM. MM/AMM was Air 2000 with the Jetset c/s. Jetset is now used by First Choice.

Wycombe,
BMI regional use ''Midland'' now.I think ''Granite'' was Business Air until it became,merged,evolved into BMI regional.They used to be Air Ecosse in the 70's.Callsign Ecosse.
Mooncrest.
Then there was Aberdeen Airways with ''Bon Accord''.
Good old Dan Air. (Dan dare,Dan scare).The alpha numerics were a later addition.Brymon and Alidair as well but they just used straightforward callsigns.
Ah that was when the job was fun.:ok: