WHBM
We were given temporary American ALTPs to fly the aircraft. I can't remember if we had a second year with an Air Florida aircraft, it was a long time ago..

I remember the Air Florida 732's, they had a blue and green tail insignia that then ran along the fuselage, or vice-versa depending on your way of looking.

In the above post of LGW photos, in the background of the third photo there's two white DC-8's with blue cheat lines with an Air Zimbabwe 707 sandwiched between them.. Anyone know whose they were ? Always seemed sunny back then, even if that was far from the truth....

The two DC8s belonged to IAS Cargo Airlines, headquartered at Horley, which I flew before joining Air Europe.

They look like Worldways Canada to me?

Worldways, yes. On the left hand side of the pic there's another DC-8 behind the Orion 737 - is that Rich International?

Was Peach Air not a reincarnation of Sabre after they went bust?

Remember Sabre then Peach doing bucket and spade flights from NWI in the mid/late 90's.

Seemed to have a habit of pitching up with u/s APU's thus requiring air starts from the ground rig.

Certainly is Rich International. Just seeing those tail colours remind me of the time when at MIA and I got on to the Rich ramp in the days of the C46s and DC6s. A lovely, if by the time of the DC8s somewhat dated livery. If I recall correctly the Rich DC8s did a season operating from various UK airports, possible to Orlando?

One of the Air Florida 732s ended up with Dan Air for a spell in 1986; either BJXL or BJXM. She still wore the blue stripey bit of the Air Florida livery plus the uncircled compass and pennant on the tailfin. I remember this particular aircraft used to frequently turn up at Leeds Bradford during the 1986-87 winter season, I think on Intasun duty.

Going back to what treadigraph said about the Comet and Caravelle on Mediterranean charters, I know there were no UK-registered Caravelles but there were certainly Comets from BEA/BEA Airtours, Channel and Dan Air out there. Most likely the same actual aircraft over a number of years. Caravelles came from Transavia, Air Charter, SAT Flug, Istanbul Airlines, Hispania and Aero Lloyd, among others.

154's to the Med?

There were certainly quite a few Caravelle regulars in a Gatwick in the '70s, others included SATA, Aviaco (I think?), SAM and at least two other Italian and Spanish operators whose names escape me.

One oddity I recall was a Midwest Air Charter Caravelle, N901MW or N902MW I think, trailing down Green 1 from Strumble to Dover - must have been about 1980. Think it's callsign was the registration.

I am admittedly stretching the truth there. For Mediterranean, read Black Sea.

As well as the Air Florida supplementals, Air Europe also operated G-BKRO during summer 1983. An ex-Maersk aircraft leased from GPA. A bit like the Dan Air aircraft I mentioned above, this one was another LBA regular, from and to Palma just about every Sunday. It must have liked short runways!

EDIT: Apparently BKRO had the -17 engines whereas Air Europe's own aircraft had the -15.

Now hopelessly off topic, but Greenair from Turkey operated 3 x 154's and certainly flew to Gatwick in early 90's.....now back to the -200....

IEA started in 87 with one -200 for the summer only, wef 88 they operated -300's, not sure that Paramount operated -200, I recall them operating an Ansett Leasing owned -300 but I don't recall a -200.

g-bkms, 1989 after they bought amber air.

200 was based MAN
300 G-PATE based NCl

The year didn’t end well for old Paramount though….

How about GB Airways?

G-PATE ended up being chartered by the Queensland government for sub-contracting with Ansett, Ansett the sub-contractor and also the aircraft owner, not surprisingly G-PATE never made it back from Oz.

A few B737-200 Gatwick photos from late 70's to early 80's. The Air Liberia one would probably not be called a "holiday jet".
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a7ea3a6fdd.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f8066c89c1.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....207acb48fd.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c915b489ff.jpg

I honestly don't know what Gibair was up to in the 1970s and 1980s, apart from flying at least one Viscount and one 737 between Gibraltar, Tangiers and Gatwick. I do know that by the summer of 1994, GB Leisure was established as a charter offshoot, based at Gatwick with two ex-Britannia 732s, BECG and BECH. I don't know if they had any other 732s. Sunseeker Leisure at Leeds Bradford used one of the aircraft for its Malta flights before TransLift came along with their A320.

What a lot of recollections since I last looked in !
Rich did indeed run their DC8s through various UK airports in the "early" days of Florida, generally on contract to Air Florida who did an exponential expansion across the Atlantic for a short while, until bust followed boom. Air Florida only had DC-10s for long haul, so contracted them in on thinner routes and/or in the low season. Like most US charter/supplemental long haulers, much of Rich's work came from the US military, such as over to Germany. They later moved on to Tristars.

GB Airways, from Gibraltar ("Gibair"), had long had a close association with BA, leasing one of their Viscounts for the hop across the straits, but suddenly developed a substantial operation out of Gatwick, firstly to Gibraltar of course, and then both schedules and charters to various Mediterranean points. They were an early BA franchise operator, in BA full colours, and later moved on from 737s to a substantial A320 fleet. I believe they never made any money from it (bit of a Gatwick recurring story), and the owners eventually sold out to Easyjet.

Midwest Air Charter were a US operator for the overnight package companies, they used Caravelles, no cargo door, on the work. Built up quite a fleet but didn't last too long. I would guess one coming over the Atlantic was coming for a maintenance check. Caravelles would come through Gatwick from time to time, but not too many. SATA from Switzerland were a regular with student charters, Aviaco and Transeuropa both did work, especially cheap overnights, for the Intasun/Goodman business which was left over from Air Europe - Transeuropa had a couple of the very rare Caravelle 11R with a big forward cargo door, which they stripped the seats from in the off season when no holiday passengers were offered to bring in cargo, in particular early Spring potatoes from the Canary Islands. Potatoes airfreighted in a Caravelle ? No, I am not making this up :)

Arkia from Israel used to overnight at Gatwick about '81 or '82 with 737-200s. They had a vortex destroyer pipe below the engine intake for operation from unpaved runways. For security they were parked outside BCAL hangars.