British Airtours - UK based and routes
Correct, the Monday TriStar and all of the British Airtours LBA flying in 1985 was for Intasun, with Lancaster and Carousel listed as additional charterers. Thomson also had a Britannia 767 on Leeds-Palma that year.
Interesting to know the background on G-AVRN, thanks for that - makes absolute sense once you know! I also never knew of the differences with G-BADP/BADR. [Sir Arthur Whitten Brown and Robert Falcon Scott!]
Interesting to know the background on G-AVRN, thanks for that - makes absolute sense once you know! I also never knew of the differences with G-BADP/BADR. [Sir Arthur Whitten Brown and Robert Falcon Scott!]
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As "RN " has been mentioned, "SY " may warrant a mention. The complete belly skin was replaced due to significant corrosion problems, which was a major undertaking, allied to which I understand Boeing monitored the aircraft due to the high hrs / cycles it had accumulated. Not being pedantic, but "NA / NB " were designated "QC", not "ro / ro " ..which would have been a shade problematic to achieve.
Thread Starter
I'm sure I once read or heard somewhere that when KT leased some 737s from Air Europe (a regular arrangement), there was some disdain among the KT pilots because, apparently, the Air Europe aircraft were inferior in some way to the KT machines. They would all have been the Advanced variant so I wonder exactly what these pilots were referring to ?
There seems to have been quite some liaison between BA (overall) and Air Europe at its start, a bit surprising for an otherwise direct competitor. 757s, even when brand new, went back and forth between them, and one was permanently on the Heathrow-Manchester Shuttle about 1983 in Air Europe colours. New 757s wholly for Air Europe had the BA -236 model number. Once Intasun had occupied their share of Air Europe capacity, the rest was principally handled by KT, particularly from Gatwick.
I think that was a normal approach by Boeing, to keep up with the hardest-used earliest example of a type for advance warning of issues. Britannia 737s fell into this categories, but I seem to recall reading that they were just pipped by Braathens in Norway, who also had early versions.
In passing, I was always a bit surprised that it was the European holiday flight operators that were so positioned. Sure, from May to September they were in constant operation, but that was only for four months of the year, and the intense three rotations a day was also commonly just at weekends, as can be seen in the examples given above. No night flights in winter - in fact, also as described above, a good proportion of the crews were stood down in winter.
OK to use brand new aircraft for this constant operation, but Airtours Comets and 707s were well used, as was the whole of the Dan-Air fleet, yet run in the same manner.
As "RN " has been mentioned, "SY " may warrant a mention. The complete belly skin was replaced due to significant corrosion problems, which was a major undertaking, allied to which I understand Boeing monitored the aircraft due to the high hrs / cycles it had accumulated..
In passing, I was always a bit surprised that it was the European holiday flight operators that were so positioned. Sure, from May to September they were in constant operation, but that was only for four months of the year, and the intense three rotations a day was also commonly just at weekends, as can be seen in the examples given above. No night flights in winter - in fact, also as described above, a good proportion of the crews were stood down in winter.
OK to use brand new aircraft for this constant operation, but Airtours Comets and 707s were well used, as was the whole of the Dan-Air fleet, yet run in the same manner.
Last edited by WHBM; 1st Oct 2020 at 09:40.
Thread Starter
Whatever KT may have made of the AE 737s, they couldn't complain about the 757s they borrowed, given they were built to the exact same specification (236 as opposed to 2S3) as their own 757s. I believe some later AE 757s were designated 2T7.
Harry Goodman Intsaun and AE Boss, did a good deal (£££) with BA for buying new 757's by taking some of BA's large 757 order (-236's) as long as AE did not change the interior specs at Boeing, thus HG got the new planes for AE at the discounted price that BA was paying for them.
AE also leased from BA a brand new BA liveried 757 G-BIKF for summer 1983, and during the winters BA took some of AE's 757 for LHR shuttle ops.
All very cosy.
All AE 757 orders for AE/Air Europa SA were 757-236, with 535C, then after with 535E4 engines.
AE never had any 757-2S3 orders.
S3 was AE own code for new 737-200/300/400 orders
Q8 was ILFC for AE Italy Spa for new 767-300 & 777 orders
T7 was Monarch's own customer order code.
(Y0 was GPA, 3A was AWAS, K9 was Bavaria Flug -- all for new Boeing a/c on Monarch leases)
AE also leased from BA a brand new BA liveried 757 G-BIKF for summer 1983, and during the winters BA took some of AE's 757 for LHR shuttle ops.
All very cosy.
All AE 757 orders for AE/Air Europa SA were 757-236, with 535C, then after with 535E4 engines.
AE never had any 757-2S3 orders.
S3 was AE own code for new 737-200/300/400 orders
Q8 was ILFC for AE Italy Spa for new 767-300 & 777 orders
T7 was Monarch's own customer order code.
(Y0 was GPA, 3A was AWAS, K9 was Bavaria Flug -- all for new Boeing a/c on Monarch leases)
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Rog 747 : Clever dudes weren't they ? A bit off the Btours thread but Harry & his lot at AE were a real pleasure to work for. Didn't do the full 12 years but was there at the end. Wish I'd gone to Btours, I mused, as I lined up at Crawley Dole Office.
BEA Airtours started off in 1970 as a home for the BEA Comet 4B fleet; at the time of the decision in 1969 some of these were only 8 years old, by no means fully depreciated in the books but worthless on the open market, where Dan-Air was only offering scrap prices. IT was mushrooming at 20-30% per year, so the more commercially aware BEA members went for the market. The Comets did the first 4 years 1970-73, and ironically the same aircraft, ARJL, did both the first and last commercial Comet flights. To considerable market surprise they sold out all their capacity of 10 aircraft in their first summer. The last official BEA scheduled Comet flight was October 1971, but Airtours aircraft were a first choice for any substitutes required, out of season, and would turn up back at Heathrow for some time afterwards.
Subsequently they worked through the onetime BOAC 707 fleet, and then (by now British Airtours) the new 737s, with which there was an amount of to-and-fro with mainline, again notably out of season. There would be one or two long haul aircraft as well, such as the 747s mentioned above. They always were heavily based from Gatwick, with one or two at Manchester, and just the odd season from elsewhere, though they did a fair number of W arrangements. BA had ownership of a couple of key tour operators, Enterprise and Silver Wing, plus they picked up a lot of others, such as Intasun, both before and after they started Air Europe. They even got into student charters in quite a way, which in the summer brought marginal time midweek work to many places not on the normal IT horizon.
I think you will find that RN was first to be put through a substantial D check, which cost a fortune and made them decide it wasn't worth doing its compatriots, but being sunk costs they hung on to it. If I recall correctly this got stated in a feature on Britannia in BBC's Money Programme, shot in the Luton hangar at the time it was being completed.
Subsequently they worked through the onetime BOAC 707 fleet, and then (by now British Airtours) the new 737s, with which there was an amount of to-and-fro with mainline, again notably out of season. There would be one or two long haul aircraft as well, such as the 747s mentioned above. They always were heavily based from Gatwick, with one or two at Manchester, and just the odd season from elsewhere, though they did a fair number of W arrangements. BA had ownership of a couple of key tour operators, Enterprise and Silver Wing, plus they picked up a lot of others, such as Intasun, both before and after they started Air Europe. They even got into student charters in quite a way, which in the summer brought marginal time midweek work to many places not on the normal IT horizon.
I think you will find that RN was first to be put through a substantial D check, which cost a fortune and made them decide it wasn't worth doing its compatriots, but being sunk costs they hung on to it. If I recall correctly this got stated in a feature on Britannia in BBC's Money Programme, shot in the Luton hangar at the time it was being completed.
BEA Airtours started off in 1970 as a home for the BEA Comet 4B fleet; at the time of the decision in 1969 some of these were only 8 years old, by no means fully depreciated in the books but worthless on the open market, where Dan-Air was only offering scrap prices. IT was mushrooming at 20-30% per year, so the more commercially aware BEA members went for the market. The Comets did the first 4 years 1970-73, and ironically the same aircraft, ARJL, did both the first and last commercial Comet flights. To considerable market surprise they sold out all their capacity of 10 aircraft in their first summer. The last official BEA scheduled Comet flight was October 1971, but Airtours aircraft were a first choice for any substitutes required, out of season, and would turn up back at Heathrow for some time afterwards.
Subsequently they worked through the onetime BOAC 707 fleet, and then (by now British Airtours) the new 737s, with which there was an amount of to-and-fro with mainline, again notably out of season. There would be one or two long haul aircraft as well, such as the 747s mentioned above. They always were heavily based from Gatwick, with one or two at Manchester, and just the odd season from elsewhere, though they did a fair number of W arrangements. BA had ownership of a couple of key tour operators, Enterprise and Silver Wing, plus they picked up a lot of others, such as Intasun, both before and after they started Air Europe. They even got into student charters in quite a way, which in the summer brought marginal time midweek work to many places not on the normal IT horizon.
I think you will find that RN was first to be put through a substantial D check, which cost a fortune and made them decide it wasn't worth doing its compatriots, but being sunk costs they hung on to it. If I recall correctly this got stated in a feature on Britannia in BBC's Money Programme, shot in the Luton hangar at the time it was being completed.
Subsequently they worked through the onetime BOAC 707 fleet, and then (by now British Airtours) the new 737s, with which there was an amount of to-and-fro with mainline, again notably out of season. There would be one or two long haul aircraft as well, such as the 747s mentioned above. They always were heavily based from Gatwick, with one or two at Manchester, and just the odd season from elsewhere, though they did a fair number of W arrangements. BA had ownership of a couple of key tour operators, Enterprise and Silver Wing, plus they picked up a lot of others, such as Intasun, both before and after they started Air Europe. They even got into student charters in quite a way, which in the summer brought marginal time midweek work to many places not on the normal IT horizon.
I think you will find that RN was first to be put through a substantial D check, which cost a fortune and made them decide it wasn't worth doing its compatriots, but being sunk costs they hung on to it. If I recall correctly this got stated in a feature on Britannia in BBC's Money Programme, shot in the Luton hangar at the time it was being completed.
I'm sure I once read or heard somewhere that when KT leased some 737s from Air Europe (a regular arrangement), there was some disdain among the KT pilots because, apparently, the Air Europe aircraft were inferior in some way to the KT machines. They would all have been the Advanced variant so I wonder exactly what these pilots were referring to ?
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KT @ MIR
Late 80s KT had a Friday afternoon LGW service to Monastir MIR, Tunisia on behalf of i don't know which TO. It was a Tristar and for some reason always the same ones G-BBAE or BEAL, never the others. The 737s could come in winter until changed to Caledonian Airways and the 757 on Sunday i believe and then the merger.
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In December 1976 and January 1977, KT did a round trip Mauritius, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Mauritius twice over, KT had been chartrerd by Air Mauritius (MK) and I was the only MK staff on board for the Australian leg and that was my first long hawl experiece and a great one it was! Subsequently the Brirish Airtours's 707-436 registration G-APFD was leased to MK for four years and was under MK colours.
Several Airtours 707s were assigned to the Air Mauritius contract over time, painted and titled to a greater or lesser extent. When one needed a major check another was prepared to take over, plus occasional one-off substitutes by the rest of the fleet were done as required. My records show :
ARRC November 1976 to March 1977 (including the Australia flights mentioned above)
(various main fleet) - April 1977 to September 1977
APFD - October 1977 to May 1979
ARWD - May 1979 to April 1981
In April 1981 the contract passed to South African Airways, who provided 707-320B ZS-SAD in a similar manner for some years.
ARRC November 1976 to March 1977 (including the Australia flights mentioned above)
(various main fleet) - April 1977 to September 1977
APFD - October 1977 to May 1979
ARWD - May 1979 to April 1981
In April 1981 the contract passed to South African Airways, who provided 707-320B ZS-SAD in a similar manner for some years.
Bit late on parade , but was posted to KT73s LGW from BAW73s LHR in Jan '87.
Was a mix of mainline schedules with Speedbird c/s , and KT trips with Airtours c/s . Liveries slightly different , which confused pax when a sched and charter were at the same destination ..... Airtours a/c doing sched and Mainline a/c doing charter !
All were B737-236s with JT8-15A engines , +- 15500lbs thrust .
Leased in during my time was AE G-DDDV , lovely Collins 'Flying Banana' flight director . But not a 73 ADV with modern auto pilot Flight Director system with Auto land . Co pilot just used control wheel steering auto pilot , leveled off and engaged height lock . No lock on to lateral navigation or ILS either .
DV then went to mainly Gibair routes and stickers .
Was at LGW for the merger with BCAL in '88 , when we [B. Airtours ] became Caledonian , with a couple of 73s in Cale livery .
Returned to Cale Tristars in '96 , all -100s and 25 yrs old [ thrust bumped and wts increased ] apart from AJ [unk] , stayed as a -1 [ she'd overrun at LBA , and probably got a bit stressed ] . Occasional rent in of Peach air a/c [ some of which were old BA anyway ] , some being -50s .
Airtours pilots and F/Es volunteered from Mainline BA , or temp. posted . '97-'98 Cale started to recruit their own crews as were leaving the BA fold . A320s [ think only flown by Cale crews not BA ] , DC-10s , then Tristar who we trained before leaving back to mainline .
rgds condor
Was a mix of mainline schedules with Speedbird c/s , and KT trips with Airtours c/s . Liveries slightly different , which confused pax when a sched and charter were at the same destination ..... Airtours a/c doing sched and Mainline a/c doing charter !
All were B737-236s with JT8-15A engines , +- 15500lbs thrust .
Leased in during my time was AE G-DDDV , lovely Collins 'Flying Banana' flight director . But not a 73 ADV with modern auto pilot Flight Director system with Auto land . Co pilot just used control wheel steering auto pilot , leveled off and engaged height lock . No lock on to lateral navigation or ILS either .
DV then went to mainly Gibair routes and stickers .
Was at LGW for the merger with BCAL in '88 , when we [B. Airtours ] became Caledonian , with a couple of 73s in Cale livery .
Returned to Cale Tristars in '96 , all -100s and 25 yrs old [ thrust bumped and wts increased ] apart from AJ [unk] , stayed as a -1 [ she'd overrun at LBA , and probably got a bit stressed ] . Occasional rent in of Peach air a/c [ some of which were old BA anyway ] , some being -50s .
Airtours pilots and F/Es volunteered from Mainline BA , or temp. posted . '97-'98 Cale started to recruit their own crews as were leaving the BA fold . A320s [ think only flown by Cale crews not BA ] , DC-10s , then Tristar who we trained before leaving back to mainline .
rgds condor
Was the extensive repairs necessary after the overrun the reason for this a/c not being upgraded?
A colleague who worked at the airport at the time commented that this aircarft seemed to have some special comms kit (non standard aerials etc.) fittted. Perhaps it was modded for VIP duties.
DH , my apologies , when your lifetime guarantee runs out the memory does funny things . Of course it was AI , a good mate was the P3 [ before flt engineers ] on the overrun . I'm guessing [ not being an eng.] , that the stressing and repairs made it best if she stayed a -1 .
I don't remember any different aerials , 'tho the overrun was in '83ish and I only went onto the fleet in '96 . Many things could have changed by then .
The LGW and MAN to BAH and on to GOA had a First class fit , which knocked about 2 doz. pax [ 2 tonne more fuel ] off the normal 393 . Gave us a fighting chance of getting back from BAH to UK without techstopping . 393 seats went back for the summer season .
Supposedly a Tristar Royal suite covered up in the back of the Airtours hangar !
rgds condor .
I don't remember any different aerials , 'tho the overrun was in '83ish and I only went onto the fleet in '96 . Many things could have changed by then .
The LGW and MAN to BAH and on to GOA had a First class fit , which knocked about 2 doz. pax [ 2 tonne more fuel ] off the normal 393 . Gave us a fighting chance of getting back from BAH to UK without techstopping . 393 seats went back for the summer season .
Supposedly a Tristar Royal suite covered up in the back of the Airtours hangar !
rgds condor .
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Flew with K Tours a few times, firstly on the 707 to Palma in 78, then in 82 on the new 737s again to Palma also the Tristars to palma and Ibiza
The most interesting flight though was in 1984 to Alicanite on a Trident 3 (return the same) it was a late night charter in July and I am assuming it was using a night stopper T3. the aircraft was obviously operated by BA crews and it had a KT flight number. Does anyone else remember these? They were scheduled as a Trident (in the superb Manchester airport scheadule of services book) so it wasnt a one off. The return flight was also a Trident (ZZ going out ZG coming back)
The most interesting flight though was in 1984 to Alicanite on a Trident 3 (return the same) it was a late night charter in July and I am assuming it was using a night stopper T3. the aircraft was obviously operated by BA crews and it had a KT flight number. Does anyone else remember these? They were scheduled as a Trident (in the superb Manchester airport scheadule of services book) so it wasnt a one off. The return flight was also a Trident (ZZ going out ZG coming back)
Flew with K Tours a few times, firstly on the 707 to Palma in 78, then in 82 on the new 737s again to Palma also the Tristars to palma and Ibiza
The most interesting flight though was in 1984 to Alicanite on a Trident 3 (return the same) it was a late night charter in July and I am assuming it was using a night stopper T3. the aircraft was obviously operated by BA crews and it had a KT flight number. Does anyone else remember these? They were scheduled as a Trident (in the superb Manchester airport scheadule of services book) so it wasnt a one off. The return flight was also a Trident (ZZ going out ZG coming back)
The most interesting flight though was in 1984 to Alicanite on a Trident 3 (return the same) it was a late night charter in July and I am assuming it was using a night stopper T3. the aircraft was obviously operated by BA crews and it had a KT flight number. Does anyone else remember these? They were scheduled as a Trident (in the superb Manchester airport scheadule of services book) so it wasnt a one off. The return flight was also a Trident (ZZ going out ZG coming back)
BA mainline bases at MAN BFS GLA EDI NCL and BHX all at one time or another did night time summer IT charters with their own aircraft - Tridents and BAC 1-11's then with 757 and 737 later on.
I think there were some flown from LGW too.
I did not know if there were some flown for KT, or if they always used BA flight numbers.
KT normally flew just from LGW and MAN, plus also from LTN and LBA flying in and out on W patterns.
BEA used to fly night charters too from London Airport and from other outstations, way back with Vanguards to BCN IBZ AGP PMI and VLC (before ALC got built)
I read also they may have gone to the old Menorca airport too.
Tridents also flew at night from LHR to Corfu, Rhodes and Heraklion, but I am not sure if these were YN ''night tourist'' fare Scheduled flights or if they were charters, or a mix of both.
I know Olympic Airways did these same routes plus Athens, also at night and these were charters.