Corporate flight departments, UK
 

Has anyone compiled a list of all the company mini airlines which used to exist? I can only go back to the 70's but remember Ford (1-11, G1) BAe (1-11,125, Jestream), Rolls-Royce (Dove, Herron, PA31, Argosy, 1-11), GKN (125, King Air, Islander). Back in the 50's and 60's, it seemed like every company in the aerospace industry had a fleet and most large companies in wider industry had one or more aircraft. It seems odd that one minute, a company needs to spends millions on maintaining a fleet, then, next thing, they don't need it anymore!

BAe (737, EMB-145, King Air) still do, and JCB are still going for it!

Public image is one major change. They can't be seen to spend a lot on transporting their corporate personnel while paying peanuts to the lower echelon staff and squeezing the last dime out of any contract with a customer... and then there's the climate of course.

The one I can think of is Shell, they still run a couple of Falcons (8Xs I think).

BAE currently have two flight ops departments, BAE (Air) based at Warton with 2x E145s and 1x B738 and then BAE (Marine) at Barrow which has x4 B200s.

Other flight ops departments in the UK are:

-Rolls Royce with a Gulfstream at East Midlands,
-JCB with 1x G650 and 2x S-76s at East Midlands
-Specsavers with 2x B350s at Guernsey

Any more?

BP, Readymix Concrete, Robert Maxwell all used to have their own operations on AOCs.

Volkswagen have a few Falcons (900s, I think). Vernon's Pools used a Beech King Air, G-VRES, as Vernair in the 70s and 80s.
Beecham used to fly their own HS125, on their own AOC.

Granada Television also flew their own HS125 for some years - G-WBPR.

BICC and Volkswagen (GB) Ltd both had the same Dove G-ARYM. BICC first, then VW

Shell Aviation - Following his accident and leaving the RAF Douglas Bader joined the aviation department of the Asiatic Petroleum Company, soon to become part of Shell. He rejoined after the war eventually becoming Managing Director.

Bovis Construction owned a corporate aircraft

In Yorkshire David Brown Engineering (Tractors and Gearbox and at one time Aston Martin) had a a Heron or Dove and his own airfield at a place called Crossland Moor a few miles from both factories.

Cheers
Mr Mac

Tube Investments operated Heron G-ANPV, then King Air G-BKTI both BHX based.

Also at BHX BSR operated an HS125, the registration of which escapes me at the moment.

Late '60s driving to Santa Pod (Podington airfield) and just north of Newport Pagnell where the Aston Martin factory was, I often saw a Dove parked in a field just north of Newport Pagnell with a windsock nearby.

Laura Ashley: Navajo
J. Lyons: ?
United Biscuits: Kingair at Denham
AA: Dragon Rapide G-APAA, Auster, Aztec, Cessnas?
De Beers: HS 125s at LHR
Shell: ? (plus Douglas Bader's Beechcraft G-APUB at White Waltham)
National Coal Board: Dove at Stansted
BA: Kingair at Booker G-LKOW (Lord King Old W***er)

At Leeds Bradford, we had Ogden B200 G-OGDN, B400 N1565B and Falcon 900 G-SIRO. Bass Brewery owned B90 G-BAVG, B200 G-BPLC and B400 G-BRBZ. Much earlier, Charrington (as it was then) had a Piaggio - a P160, I think.

Rio Tinto Zinc - HS125 G-AWMS

Hawker Squiddeley/BAe - I personally flew quite a few times in our Jetstream 31 + 41 plus ATP and 146 if we were lucky :).Early in my time with the company they also still had a Dove or 2 .
One of our J31's (G- BWWW) of course also known as 'Whisky Three' had previously been operated by the Distillers Company - hence the Whisky Three Reg :).Their company nameplate was still in the fuselage/cabin.
Our J31 with the reg ending in 'KP' was of course referred to as 'Peanuts'.
We also had a PA44 puddle jumper :)

Used to look after lots of company aircraft at Glos Air in the 1970s and 80s.
United Biscuits - King Air 200
Ranco Europe - Commander 690C
Distillers Co. - King Air 100 then Jetstream 200 then Jetstream 31
Guiness - Jetstream 200
Laura Ashley - King Air C90, B200, Citation I and Falcon 100
BA for Lord King - King Air 200 then 300
Westland Helicopters - HS125
JSAX corp. - HS125
TVS television co. - BN2T Islander, Commander 690B
AAH - Commander 690B and 695
That's a few that come to mind, there were lots more.

British Aircraft Corp. had a Heron and HS125 in the early 1970s.

Couple of gap fillers...

Systime at Leeds Bradford C421 G-EAGL and Kenton Utilities at Newcastle Beech Kingair G-BHYU
The Vernair fleet in the late 70s was..
G-VRES Kingair 200
G-BAVE Kingair A100
G-BFVX Kingair C90
G-BFVY Kingair C90
G-AVNG Queenair A80
G-AYPC Queenair 70 (my daily driver)
G-WWS Skyvan
G-AWPK PA-23 Aztec

In these times, when climate change is dominating the headlines, it is not good PR to be seen to be using company aircraft. Hence Tesco's decision to divest itself of it's fleet back in 2015

Tesco prepares to get rid of last corporate jet

G-ASSM.

Standard Telephones and Cables - DC-3 G-AJRY
Ferranti - Heron G-ASCX,G-APMV
Dowty - Dove G-AVHV
British Steel - Dove G-AOFI
Rolls Electromatic - Dove G-AMXW
Leyland Motor Corporation - Dove G-APVX
BICC - Dove G-ARYM
Scottish Aviation - Dove G-AMFU
Hawker Siddeley - HS125 G-ASEC
David Brown - Dove G-ARDH
Standard Telephones and Cables - DC-3 G-AJRY


Plus most avionics companies - Marconi, Ecko Electronics, Decca, etc operated there own aircraft.

TJ Morris (Home Bargains) have at least one helicopter, Bell 429, AS50 ?

Decca had a Jetstream, Bell 47 and a Prince at Biggin - probably part exec transport and part systems development?
Taylor Woodrow had a Twin Otter for some reason.
Tarmac had a Agusta 109
One of the brewers used to keep a PA-31 at Biggin - might have been Bass as mentioned above.

Then there was the 'Robertsons Jam' owned Navajo registered G-OLLY.

Scottish &Newcastle Brewery had a citation at EDI G-OSNB and kwik-fit had a king air I think, EDI based too.

Marconi had two jets at its peak - one which flew every day to its Italian base in Genoa as the commercial routes took a day to get there given the schedules. No idea what type it was, but it seated about 12 and it flew from Coventry airport.

The second one did the Pittsburgh run, and was bought when BA stopped flying to Pittsburgh direct, and the change was a bit of a pain. In good old 'lack of planning' organisation, it turned out that international private jets werent allowed direct into Pittsburgh, so the private jet had to stop at Newark for immigration. I am not 100% sure but the jet was fitted out with large business class style seats only and the story was that they got a good deal on the aircraft as it was destined for Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he cancelled at short notice and Marconi snapped it up cheap. Marconi went bust about a year or so later.

Weren't Vernair also a charter company rather than just being private ops?

Also Hawker Siddeley had a fleet of Dove's

Fox's Glacier Mints ran a Rapide (G-AIDL) out of Leicester for many years in the 50s/60s, alongside the English Electric Heron flown by Alan Firmin. Alan had his own Decca approach to cope with the inadequacies of Leicester East ! The Heron had a regular schedule to Valley to cover the construction of an early nuclear power station on Anglesey. (Wyddfa ?)
I also remember first a Beagle 206 then an Aztec, owned by Associated Tobaccos which operated for a few years until it was, I think, written off during an asymmetric refresher.
A long time ago so could be slightly wrong on a couple of aspects.

Fairey's used a Bristol Frightener to move stuff to and from Brussels

British Car Auctions
Iceland Frozen Foods

Operates an A109 from Fairoaks.(G-FRZN)

Wasn't there a Heron operated by British Nuclear Fuels or some such organisation?

Marconi had a Piaggio P.166 for quite a while, remember seeing it over South Croydon one day many years ago - now in the Science Museum collection at Wroughton.

Another corporate twin once seen beating up Purley's "Volkswagen Building" just a stone's throw from where I type this was VW's Islander - used for parts distribution I think!

Just as a sideline, you can still fly in the Dragon Rapide G-AIDL, mentioned in post*26 by Sleeve Wing. It is operated by Classic Wings at Duxford..

Lego Citation at Fairoaks in the 80's as in Lego had a Citation, not an actual Lego Citation :)

Whitbread had a Navajo G-BREW

Ah yes, that was the one that lived at Biggin...

'IDL operated joyrides from Biggin in the 1970s and '80s as Southern Joyrides, owned by the late Mike Hood. Nice guy, had a lovely flight over London in the old bird.

I believe Birds Eye Foods had a Queen Air (based Fairoaks?) in the '70s.

De Beers used a Do 228 for transporting diamonds at Fairoaks in the '90s but don't tell anyone.

Operated out of Farnborough later; larger Citation (650 I think) whilst they were building Legoland at Winsdsor.
IBM used 3 different Falcons at Farnborough in the '90s too.

I operated G-BREW out of Biggin for many years. Great bunch of guys to work with and the aircraft flew its socks off just as a good corporate should. Real shame what eventually happened to the flight department but thats what comes of listening to "experts".

Out of Leeds / Bradford Asda used to have a corporate jet when they were owned by Walmart as a friends wife was their marketing director but not sure of type.

I worked for Saint Gobain and back in the 90,s for a while, and there seemed to be an airforce available to our French opposite numbers, sadly not allowed on them if UK based it seemed.

Cheers
Mr Mac

A construction earthworks company called Cinnamond kept a jet ranger at Luton. It was G-DOFY (Duchess of York) and was the one Fergie bought to learn to fly in.

It was rumoured to be mostly used for the owner to go to French vineyards to buy his wine at source.