British Airtours - UK based and routes
Much later, FWIW, 12 Oct 1991, MCO-GLA non stop on leased Boeing 757 G-BTEJ. I have flight time of 18:54L dep, 07:16arr, 7h20min, guess not that unusual for a 757. Apologies for thread drift.
OTEA
Wonder if most were day flights as I have in my flight log (as SLF) HER-GLA on 31 August 1984, non stop on G-AVRO, one of Britannia's original four from 1968! Full flight but block times were 0500L off chocks, and 0735L on chocks, block time of 4h35. Cooler ambient temps aiding endurance, presumably.
Much later, FWIW, 12 Oct 1991, MCO-GLA non stop on leased Boeing 757 G-BTEJ. I have flight time of 18:54L dep, 07:16arr, 7h20min, guess not that unusual for a 757. Apologies for thread drift.
OTEA
Much later, FWIW, 12 Oct 1991, MCO-GLA non stop on leased Boeing 757 G-BTEJ. I have flight time of 18:54L dep, 07:16arr, 7h20min, guess not that unusual for a 757. Apologies for thread drift.
OTEA
G-AVRO wasactually delivered in 1969, these slightly later aircraft had a higher max gross take off weight
Swap around so much that it was as either an exciting job get the right aircraft in the right place or a complete nightmare. An older 737 such as G-BAZG could have started the day at NCL doing a short flight, but would be swapped down route with a newer One to operate the next longer sector. Dan Air on the other hand just based their best performing 737 at ncl and left it there!
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Wonder if most were day flights as I have in my flight log (as SLF) HER-GLA on 31 August 1984, non stop on G-AVRO, one of Britannia's original four from 1968! Full flight but block times were 0500L off chocks, and 0735L on chocks, block time of 4h35. Cooler ambient temps aiding endurance, presumably.
Much later, FWIW, 12 Oct 1991, MCO-GLA non stop on leased Boeing 757 G-BTEJ. I have flight time of 18:54L dep, 07:16arr, 7h20min, guess not that unusual for a 757. Apologies for thread drift.
OTEA
Much later, FWIW, 12 Oct 1991, MCO-GLA non stop on leased Boeing 757 G-BTEJ. I have flight time of 18:54L dep, 07:16arr, 7h20min, guess not that unusual for a 757. Apologies for thread drift.
OTEA
BEA Airtours in 1970 was formed up to fly from LGW & MAN for BEA owned package tour company's - Flair, Enterprise, Hickie Borman, Sovereign and Martin Rooks holidays.
Much to the anger protest & distain of the Gatwick based Laker AW (Lord Bros Hols) Caledonian AW and BUA (Global, Wings, and Horizon Hols) plus Dan Air who had no in-
house Tour Co.
and to a lesser extent to the annoyance of Britannia AW (Thomsons) Court Line (Clarksons) and Monarch (Cosmos) - but these 3 airlines then, were mainly LTN based operators, along with Dan Air at LTN who had a 1-11 300/400 base of 5 a/c flying for Lunn Poly, Horizon/4S and Everyman holidays.
Channel Airways who had a large Lyons Tours IT contract from STN and LTN were to go bust by the next summer.
KT would also fly for many other tour operators as well, such as Pontinental, Whitehall, Castle, Panorama, Wings, Mato Jetway, and Ellerman Sunflight.
They were always AFAICR known as KT, not BKT (The 3 letter Iaco codes were not really used in those days)
aka the St Trinian's airline amongst the staff.
Flight code was KT although at LGW flights were all called ''Tango'' - this was also heard on departure calls, seen on boarding cards and bag tags.
Not sure where Tango came from....
Comets were flown at first up to the end of the summer 1973, with the 707-436's from BOAC coming on stream in 1972,
KT did want to obtain 707-123B's from AA but HM Govt thwarted that.
(Laker, Caledonian, Britannia, and Monarch were all by then flying JT3D fan powered Boeing 707 and 720B)
in 1974 now called British Airtours (still KT)
707-336C VPB was added plus a 707-336B XXY some years later.
Tristars added from 1981/1982 and new 737-200ADVs from 1980.
KT used the L1011-1/-50 plus also the 200 and 500 series. The Tristars went all around the Med with the 200 and 500 series also doing ABC flights.
In early 1984 a brand new RR 747-236 came straight to KT from Boeing G-BDXL in Negus for just for one season - used for Ski flights, Med and Canaries and ABC's to Canada & USA.
The next 747 to join leased on and off to KT was G-BGMS (in Landor) a 1971 -283B from SAS which went on in 1988 to serve with both BA and CKT Caledonian until it's sale in 1990 to Virgin Atlantic.
BA's G-BLVE and VF, also operated for British Airtours for a while in summer 1985 In full BA landor.
The BEA/ BA Airtours fleet flew all the usual Med and Canaries IT routes, with the 707's doing the Affinity/ABC charters to USA and Canada from early on (sold through Poundstretcher and Jetsave flights)
I flew VPB LGW-EWR on staff travel in 1981 - KT took my World AW free ticket LGW-BWI-EWR as an LMC runner to the gate with my bag, as the WO DC-10 was still very Tech in FRA.
Nice flight and I got to NYC on time for my evening out...
Again on STBY staff travel I flew Corfu-LGW on 707 XXY in June 1982.
Both still had the hat racks.
I flew to Corfu and Palma on a Syrian painted 707.
KT leased in Dan Air's 707 YSL for a couple of seasons, and KT leased out to Syrian a pair of 707's, and a trio to Air Mauritius to help them start up their own long haul.
When I was at Monarch in 1985 KT flew a few rotations a week for us with one of their 732, LGW-JMK, JSI and JTR.
Aircraft used often just had ''British'' painted on it so although in 130Y config it was a mainline a/c.
All were made with tech stops on the way back at ATH or SKG.
Lots of W flights were done with crew transport used around the UK to join the dots.
LBA and LTN were 2 such places where Tristars flew such patterns to/from Palma.
The Tri-Star's were starting to become horridly unreliable - often 2 were AOG at LGW with another one AOG at MAN, all 3 due to go to ATH and back on a Friday night -- and then all to Palma early on SAT morning, then ALC in the afternoon and IBZ on the SAT night, (trying to forget Sunday lol, with was TFS and LPA)
all of which then sent shock waves through the flying program over the weekend until early the following week to play catch up.
3 x 393 seats x 12 R/T flights by SUN morning was daunting to shift = 24 pax sectors.
The KT name goes =
In 1988 BA bought BCAL and KT was renamed Caledonian AW (now CKT) with a smart new livery, a Landor version of the BCAL scheme.
BCAL had its own charter arm from 1982, BCAL Charter that had 2 ex Laker DC10-10's, but was renamed as stand alone Cal Air in 1985, which was then sold off as Novair in 1988 after the BA/BCAL buyout.
The CKT Tri-Star and 737 fleet during 1989 then was to include new 757's.
DC-10-30 from BA mainline was added later for long haul to Mombasa, the Caribbean and the Maldives non stop.
The Tristar (and 757 iirc) also did some long haul but had to tech stop BGR for MCO and BAH for Maldives.
747 G-BMGS was leased again to CKT until 1990 when sold to Virgin.
In 1995 all ties with BA were gone when CKT was sold to Inspirations Holidays who only were taking on the former KT Tristar fleet.
In turn by 1999 that group was sold to Thomas Cook who merged CKT with FCL and AWD to become JMC Air.
Much to the anger protest & distain of the Gatwick based Laker AW (Lord Bros Hols) Caledonian AW and BUA (Global, Wings, and Horizon Hols) plus Dan Air who had no in-
house Tour Co.
and to a lesser extent to the annoyance of Britannia AW (Thomsons) Court Line (Clarksons) and Monarch (Cosmos) - but these 3 airlines then, were mainly LTN based operators, along with Dan Air at LTN who had a 1-11 300/400 base of 5 a/c flying for Lunn Poly, Horizon/4S and Everyman holidays.
Channel Airways who had a large Lyons Tours IT contract from STN and LTN were to go bust by the next summer.
KT would also fly for many other tour operators as well, such as Pontinental, Whitehall, Castle, Panorama, Wings, Mato Jetway, and Ellerman Sunflight.
They were always AFAICR known as KT, not BKT (The 3 letter Iaco codes were not really used in those days)
aka the St Trinian's airline amongst the staff.
Flight code was KT although at LGW flights were all called ''Tango'' - this was also heard on departure calls, seen on boarding cards and bag tags.
Not sure where Tango came from....
Comets were flown at first up to the end of the summer 1973, with the 707-436's from BOAC coming on stream in 1972,
KT did want to obtain 707-123B's from AA but HM Govt thwarted that.
(Laker, Caledonian, Britannia, and Monarch were all by then flying JT3D fan powered Boeing 707 and 720B)
in 1974 now called British Airtours (still KT)
707-336C VPB was added plus a 707-336B XXY some years later.
Tristars added from 1981/1982 and new 737-200ADVs from 1980.
KT used the L1011-1/-50 plus also the 200 and 500 series. The Tristars went all around the Med with the 200 and 500 series also doing ABC flights.
In early 1984 a brand new RR 747-236 came straight to KT from Boeing G-BDXL in Negus for just for one season - used for Ski flights, Med and Canaries and ABC's to Canada & USA.
The next 747 to join leased on and off to KT was G-BGMS (in Landor) a 1971 -283B from SAS which went on in 1988 to serve with both BA and CKT Caledonian until it's sale in 1990 to Virgin Atlantic.
BA's G-BLVE and VF, also operated for British Airtours for a while in summer 1985 In full BA landor.
The BEA/ BA Airtours fleet flew all the usual Med and Canaries IT routes, with the 707's doing the Affinity/ABC charters to USA and Canada from early on (sold through Poundstretcher and Jetsave flights)
I flew VPB LGW-EWR on staff travel in 1981 - KT took my World AW free ticket LGW-BWI-EWR as an LMC runner to the gate with my bag, as the WO DC-10 was still very Tech in FRA.
Nice flight and I got to NYC on time for my evening out...
Again on STBY staff travel I flew Corfu-LGW on 707 XXY in June 1982.
Both still had the hat racks.
I flew to Corfu and Palma on a Syrian painted 707.
KT leased in Dan Air's 707 YSL for a couple of seasons, and KT leased out to Syrian a pair of 707's, and a trio to Air Mauritius to help them start up their own long haul.
When I was at Monarch in 1985 KT flew a few rotations a week for us with one of their 732, LGW-JMK, JSI and JTR.
Aircraft used often just had ''British'' painted on it so although in 130Y config it was a mainline a/c.
All were made with tech stops on the way back at ATH or SKG.
Lots of W flights were done with crew transport used around the UK to join the dots.
LBA and LTN were 2 such places where Tristars flew such patterns to/from Palma.
The Tri-Star's were starting to become horridly unreliable - often 2 were AOG at LGW with another one AOG at MAN, all 3 due to go to ATH and back on a Friday night -- and then all to Palma early on SAT morning, then ALC in the afternoon and IBZ on the SAT night, (trying to forget Sunday lol, with was TFS and LPA)
all of which then sent shock waves through the flying program over the weekend until early the following week to play catch up.
3 x 393 seats x 12 R/T flights by SUN morning was daunting to shift = 24 pax sectors.
The KT name goes =
In 1988 BA bought BCAL and KT was renamed Caledonian AW (now CKT) with a smart new livery, a Landor version of the BCAL scheme.
BCAL had its own charter arm from 1982, BCAL Charter that had 2 ex Laker DC10-10's, but was renamed as stand alone Cal Air in 1985, which was then sold off as Novair in 1988 after the BA/BCAL buyout.
The CKT Tri-Star and 737 fleet during 1989 then was to include new 757's.
DC-10-30 from BA mainline was added later for long haul to Mombasa, the Caribbean and the Maldives non stop.
The Tristar (and 757 iirc) also did some long haul but had to tech stop BGR for MCO and BAH for Maldives.
747 G-BMGS was leased again to CKT until 1990 when sold to Virgin.
In 1995 all ties with BA were gone when CKT was sold to Inspirations Holidays who only were taking on the former KT Tristar fleet.
In turn by 1999 that group was sold to Thomas Cook who merged CKT with FCL and AWD to become JMC Air.
In the late 80’s I always wondered why the older BY 737’s didn’t spend much time up north in Newcastle and then found an interesting article on airliners.net in hindsight stating the obvious that the older ones couldn’t make it non-stop to Greece and the canaries so Glasgow and Newcastle usually had the G-BJC@ and G-BKH^ for this purpose. But, the fleet used to
Swap around so much that it was as either an exciting job get the right aircraft in the right place or a complete nightmare. An older 737 such as G-BAZG could have started the day at NCL doing a short flight, but would be swapped down route with a newer One to operate the next longer sector. Dan Air on the other hand just based their best performing 737 at ncl and left it there!
Swap around so much that it was as either an exciting job get the right aircraft in the right place or a complete nightmare. An older 737 such as G-BAZG could have started the day at NCL doing a short flight, but would be swapped down route with a newer One to operate the next longer sector. Dan Air on the other hand just based their best performing 737 at ncl and left it there!
When BA rebranded KT to Caledonian, were the crews employed by BA? So when G-BHDH and G-NIUK went to CKT, they were flown by the BA DC10 fleet? Or did CKT really train crews for a small subfleet? Same with the B757s, they were BA flight deck I think?
The TriStars that went with the Inspirations deal were flown by seconded BA crews? Is that right? The DC10s flown later were not? G-GOKT and G-LYON.
The TriStars that went with the Inspirations deal were flown by seconded BA crews? Is that right? The DC10s flown later were not? G-GOKT and G-LYON.
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Gett'n a bit worn out now but in my confusion, have to ask. Certainly in line with nostalgia, having attended a wedding in Manch, looking for a sub-load back to Gatters , ServiceAir Dude got me on to a positioning 747, yeah, 747 . I am sure he said it was Btours. Thanked the FD crew who left me alone on the upperdeck, told me how to open the door (no cc) and off we went.
I mean, really nostalgic eh (?) when you could just pitch up, flash your ID and beg anyone for a ride home. But, was it really a Btours 747 ?
I mean, really nostalgic eh (?) when you could just pitch up, flash your ID and beg anyone for a ride home. But, was it really a Btours 747 ?
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Gett'n a bit worn out now but in my confusion, have to ask. Certainly in line with nostalgia, having attended a wedding in Manch, looking for a sub-load back to Gatters , ServiceAir Dude got me on to a positioning 747, yeah, 747 . I am sure he said it was Btours. Thanked the FD crew who left me alone on the upperdeck, told me how to open the door (no cc) and off we went.
I mean, really nostalgic eh (?) when you could just pitch up, flash your ID and beg anyone for a ride home. But, was it really a Btours 747 ?
I mean, really nostalgic eh (?) when you could just pitch up, flash your ID and beg anyone for a ride home. But, was it really a Btours 747 ?
G-BDXL 1984
G-BMGS 1986-1988
I had a quick check this weekend in the books but didn't have chance to type up the full list. 1985 saw British Airtours bases at LGW and MAN but with some W pattern flying to LBA (including that TriStar on Monday afternoons from PMI, a W pattern from Gatwick) and a Gerona and a Palma rotation later in the week on 737-200s out of Manchester. There were a few other bits of Birmingham and Luton flying that year - all looked to be for Intasun. It had all the hallmarks of a negotiation between Intasun and BTours which said "cover this regional flying for us, and we'll give you our Gatwick large aircraft programme", neatly relieving Air Europe of the need to do multiple W patterns.
Tristar 500 G-BFCE was leased back from the RAF for the latter part of Summer 1985 to cover G-BBAI's absence whilst being fixed up in LBA. Given later events that summer, it was a quite terrible year for any airline to suffer.
The MAH-BHX-MAH TriStar on Fridays went through into Caledonian days as well. That was a couple of years before the proliferation of the Peach Air and Air Ops Europe TriStars which then started to descend on Gatwick.
Downwind Left has it right with the 747 as G-BDXL in 1984, but G-BMGS did quite a bit longer than that with British Airtours and Caledonian - it was painted in full Caledonian colours so went on until at least late 1989.
The 737-200s were a relatively short-lived rarity in Caledonian colours, although they did look good.
Of the Britannia 737-200s, G-AVRN soldiered on for many years after its three sisterships had left the fleet. I never really understood why, but it seemed to find a home in semi-retirement flying the Britannia scheduled service between Luton and Belfast International which ran for a few years. It depends on how old you are, but most did venture reasonably far north in the earlier days. G-AWSY and G-AZNZ were the only two which I recall were rarely seen in the north. The others even including the two ro/ro aircraft (G-AXNA and 'NB) did appear fairly widely throughout the network. [The even more worrying thing is that I can still remember most of the fleet names 35 years later. Captain James Cook, General James Wolfe, Henry Hudson, Robert Clive of India and Charles Darwin, for the five aircraft just mentioned. You could never name aircraft like that nowadays - I'm sure many would be towed off and chucked into Bristol docks. Good history lesson though.]
But enough! Back to British Airtours....
Tristar 500 G-BFCE was leased back from the RAF for the latter part of Summer 1985 to cover G-BBAI's absence whilst being fixed up in LBA. Given later events that summer, it was a quite terrible year for any airline to suffer.
The MAH-BHX-MAH TriStar on Fridays went through into Caledonian days as well. That was a couple of years before the proliferation of the Peach Air and Air Ops Europe TriStars which then started to descend on Gatwick.
Downwind Left has it right with the 747 as G-BDXL in 1984, but G-BMGS did quite a bit longer than that with British Airtours and Caledonian - it was painted in full Caledonian colours so went on until at least late 1989.
The 737-200s were a relatively short-lived rarity in Caledonian colours, although they did look good.
Of the Britannia 737-200s, G-AVRN soldiered on for many years after its three sisterships had left the fleet. I never really understood why, but it seemed to find a home in semi-retirement flying the Britannia scheduled service between Luton and Belfast International which ran for a few years. It depends on how old you are, but most did venture reasonably far north in the earlier days. G-AWSY and G-AZNZ were the only two which I recall were rarely seen in the north. The others even including the two ro/ro aircraft (G-AXNA and 'NB) did appear fairly widely throughout the network. [The even more worrying thing is that I can still remember most of the fleet names 35 years later. Captain James Cook, General James Wolfe, Henry Hudson, Robert Clive of India and Charles Darwin, for the five aircraft just mentioned. You could never name aircraft like that nowadays - I'm sure many would be towed off and chucked into Bristol docks. Good history lesson though.]
But enough! Back to British Airtours....
Flightrider: Britannia operated two B737 -200 adv.-9 G-BADP & G-BADR which had the improved slats/flaps but retained the less powerful engines. This enabled them to operate long stage lengths like LGW - Canaries but which required long runways at each end! V2 in the region of 170kts springs to mind!
Thread Starter
The mention of Britannia Airways reminds me - once or twice at LBA we had Britannia 737s on very short-term dry leases to KT. I remember the pilots feeling the need to mention it to ATC on the approach; 'we're in a Britannia aircraft today'. Probably something to do with QNH v. QFE approach and what the two companies used.
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.
Of the Britannia 737-200s, G-AVRN soldiered on for many years after its three sisterships had left the fleet. I never really understood why, but it seemed to find a home in semi-retirement flying the Britannia scheduled service between Luton and Belfast International which ran for a few years
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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 had it on VHS. Long since gone!
Thread Starter
Drifting my own thread here but I remember that sequence in the Britannia hangar. The then Technical Director, Bernard Newton, was interviewed. I remember him saying something like, 'once the maintenance on this aircraft is completed, I would defy anybody to find any significant difference between it and a brand new 737'. At the time I thought nothing of that but it seems quite a bold claim thirty-odd years later. Perhaps AVRN was the aircraft that KT leased for that brief period - 'have this one. It's as good as new. No, really...'
WHBM. I've noticed in your various posts over the years you use terms like 'depreciated' and 'residual value'. Can you please explain what these mean in an airlines context ? I'm no accountant! Thankyou.
WHBM. I've noticed in your various posts over the years you use terms like 'depreciated' and 'residual value'. Can you please explain what these mean in an airlines context ? I'm no accountant! Thankyou.
Last edited by Mooncrest; 30th Sep 2020 at 10:42.
I'm not an accountant either, but this does come as part of my day job, and sometimes I am found explaining it to accountants
Buy an airliner. It costs $200m. That's hard cash and has to be paid out. But in accounting for its cost you say it's $1m a month, going forward. $12m cost at the end of the year, taken from the value of the aircraft, was $200m, now $188m, sometimes called Book Value. That's Depreciation. It's a "good as you can" assessment of what value the business is losing as it is used.
Residual Value is what it's really worth. In the example here it will take 16 years for all that you paid for it to be absorbed in the accounts. If it was an A320, after 16 years it's likely still worth a good deal of money. In the case of the BEA Comets by the time they were only halfway through this, they were worth nothing on the market. Sell it to the scrapman and that's a huge loss in the accounts.
All significant because the depreciation, which is just an accountant's calculation, becomes a significant part of costs each year, and thus assessing the profit of a business. Among other things tax is determined on this, so the taxman has distinct rules on what is allowed in your accounts. It's one of the first things a tax auditor looks at. And then, if the aircraft is scrapped early, you are going to have to find another $200m earlier than expected as well for a replacement. Remember all those losses by BEA/BOAC in the 1950s/60s ? A good bit of that was premature retiring of a string of less than impressive aircraft.
Buy an airliner. It costs $200m. That's hard cash and has to be paid out. But in accounting for its cost you say it's $1m a month, going forward. $12m cost at the end of the year, taken from the value of the aircraft, was $200m, now $188m, sometimes called Book Value. That's Depreciation. It's a "good as you can" assessment of what value the business is losing as it is used.
Residual Value is what it's really worth. In the example here it will take 16 years for all that you paid for it to be absorbed in the accounts. If it was an A320, after 16 years it's likely still worth a good deal of money. In the case of the BEA Comets by the time they were only halfway through this, they were worth nothing on the market. Sell it to the scrapman and that's a huge loss in the accounts.
All significant because the depreciation, which is just an accountant's calculation, becomes a significant part of costs each year, and thus assessing the profit of a business. Among other things tax is determined on this, so the taxman has distinct rules on what is allowed in your accounts. It's one of the first things a tax auditor looks at. And then, if the aircraft is scrapped early, you are going to have to find another $200m earlier than expected as well for a replacement. Remember all those losses by BEA/BOAC in the 1950s/60s ? A good bit of that was premature retiring of a string of less than impressive aircraft.