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British Airtours
British Airtours (stylised as British aırtours) was a charter airline in the United Kingdom with flight operations out of London Gatwick and Manchester Airports.
Established as BEA Airtours in 1969, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways (BA) following the merger between British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in the early 1970s. British Airtours adopted the Caledonian Airways name when the newly British Airways completed the acquisition of the rival British Caledonian in April 1988. Caledonian Airways was eventually sold to tour operator Inspirations in 1995, marking BA's exit from the mainstream inclusive tour market. In 1999, Thomas Cook acquired Inspirations and merged Caledonian Airways with Flying Colours to form JMC Air Services, a forerunner of the UK arm of the later Thomas Cook Airlines. On 23 September 2019, Thomas Cook Airlines ceased operations, thus ending the legacy of British Airtours.
BEA Airtours Ltd. was formed on 24 April 1969 as a subsidiary of British European Airways to provide it with a low cost platform to participate in the then rapidly growing inclusive tour (IT) holiday flights market, which until then had been the exclusive domain of wholly privately owned airlines independent from the government-owned corporation BEA and BOAC. BEA saw this as a necessary counterweight to the independents' rapidly growing scheduled activities that began encroaching on what BEA and BOAC had traditionally regarded as their sole preserve. BEA Airtours' formation was in line with one of the recommendations of the Edwards Report on the future of British air industry – that the corporations should enter the inclusive tour and charter market.
The independent charter airlines were suspicious of BEA's motive to enter the IT market and some feared that the operator held a hidden agenda to destabilise this market by undercutting the independent carriers, none of which could match the corporation's financial resources and access to capital at the time. The independents moreover thought that BEA Airtours was meant to take on the corporations' excess staff as well as to absorb aircraft that were surplus to their requirements. They feared that this would lead to significant market distortions, creating excess capacity and further depressing the already low charter rates in a highly competitive market.
BEA's charter subsidiary had a startup capital of £250,000 and selected Gatwick Airport south of London to serve as its base, where it took over the former Transglobe Airways hangar to provide engineering support for its Gatwick fleet. The airline commenced commercial operations out of Gatwick, initially using a fleet of seven second-hand ex-BEA de Havilland Comet series 4B aircraft which seated 109 passengers in a single-class configuration. On 5 March 1970, the first revenue flight departed Gatwick.
During 1971, BEA Airtours had decided to replace the entire fleet with a similar number of larger capacity, longer range and more fuel-efficient ex-American Airlines Boeing 707-123Bs to enable it to commence non-stop, long-haul charter flights, including affinity group charters to North America. Despite having obtained permission from the Department of Trade and Industry to import second-hand 707-120Bs and the non-availability of internally sourced alternatives (BOAC's 707-436s) within the envisaged timeframe, both corporations opposed this decision. They insisted that any new aircraft should be exclusively sourced from the existing BEA and BOAC fleets.[citation needed]
Following the corporations' intervention, BEA Airtours acquired seven former BOAC Boeing 707-436s. These aircraft had a greater seating capacity than required and were powered by four Rolls-Royce Conway engines, an older generation engine type than the four Pratt & Whitney JT3D turbofans which powered the ex-American 707-123Bs it had originally selected to replace its Comet fleet. This meant that the ex-BOAC 707s had higher operating costs. However, BOAC was prepared to sell these aircraft to BEA Airtours at a lower price than American was asking for its planes. The £4.3m sale price included BOAC's entire spares holding (inclusive of engines) for the seven aircraft. This helped compensate for the cost differential. The first of these 174-seat aircraft entered service in 1971 while the last aircraft of this batch joined the fleet in 1973. By that time, four of the airline's nine Comet 4Bs had already been withdrawn from service and sold to rival British charter airlines.
The 1973 oil crisis in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, which led to a quadrupling of the price of a barrel of oil, substantially increased the operating costs of the remaining fuel-thirsty Comets and began to have an adverse impact on the airline's financial performance. British Airtours, as the airline had become known following the establishment of British Airways in 1974 as a result of the 1972 BEA—BOAC merger, therefore decided to retire its remaining five Comets at the end of that year's summer season and to sell the entire fleet to independent British operator Dan-Air.
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British Airtours
British Airtours (stylised as British aırtours) was a charter airline in the United Kingdom with flight operations out of London Gatwick and Manchester Airports.
Established as BEA Airtours in 1969, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways (BA) following the merger between British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in the early 1970s. British Airtours adopted the Caledonian Airways name when the newly British Airways completed the acquisition of the rival British Caledonian in April 1988. Caledonian Airways was eventually sold to tour operator Inspirations in 1995, marking BA's exit from the mainstream inclusive tour market. In 1999, Thomas Cook acquired Inspirations and merged Caledonian Airways with Flying Colours to form JMC Air Services, a forerunner of the UK arm of the later Thomas Cook Airlines. On 23 September 2019, Thomas Cook Airlines ceased operations, thus ending the legacy of British Airtours.
BEA Airtours Ltd. was formed on 24 April 1969 as a subsidiary of British European Airways to provide it with a low cost platform to participate in the then rapidly growing inclusive tour (IT) holiday flights market, which until then had been the exclusive domain of wholly privately owned airlines independent from the government-owned corporation BEA and BOAC. BEA saw this as a necessary counterweight to the independents' rapidly growing scheduled activities that began encroaching on what BEA and BOAC had traditionally regarded as their sole preserve. BEA Airtours' formation was in line with one of the recommendations of the Edwards Report on the future of British air industry – that the corporations should enter the inclusive tour and charter market.
The independent charter airlines were suspicious of BEA's motive to enter the IT market and some feared that the operator held a hidden agenda to destabilise this market by undercutting the independent carriers, none of which could match the corporation's financial resources and access to capital at the time. The independents moreover thought that BEA Airtours was meant to take on the corporations' excess staff as well as to absorb aircraft that were surplus to their requirements. They feared that this would lead to significant market distortions, creating excess capacity and further depressing the already low charter rates in a highly competitive market.
BEA's charter subsidiary had a startup capital of £250,000 and selected Gatwick Airport south of London to serve as its base, where it took over the former Transglobe Airways hangar to provide engineering support for its Gatwick fleet. The airline commenced commercial operations out of Gatwick, initially using a fleet of seven second-hand ex-BEA de Havilland Comet series 4B aircraft which seated 109 passengers in a single-class configuration. On 5 March 1970, the first revenue flight departed Gatwick.
During 1971, BEA Airtours had decided to replace the entire fleet with a similar number of larger capacity, longer range and more fuel-efficient ex-American Airlines Boeing 707-123Bs to enable it to commence non-stop, long-haul charter flights, including affinity group charters to North America. Despite having obtained permission from the Department of Trade and Industry to import second-hand 707-120Bs and the non-availability of internally sourced alternatives (BOAC's 707-436s) within the envisaged timeframe, both corporations opposed this decision. They insisted that any new aircraft should be exclusively sourced from the existing BEA and BOAC fleets.[citation needed]
Following the corporations' intervention, BEA Airtours acquired seven former BOAC Boeing 707-436s. These aircraft had a greater seating capacity than required and were powered by four Rolls-Royce Conway engines, an older generation engine type than the four Pratt & Whitney JT3D turbofans which powered the ex-American 707-123Bs it had originally selected to replace its Comet fleet. This meant that the ex-BOAC 707s had higher operating costs. However, BOAC was prepared to sell these aircraft to BEA Airtours at a lower price than American was asking for its planes. The £4.3m sale price included BOAC's entire spares holding (inclusive of engines) for the seven aircraft. This helped compensate for the cost differential. The first of these 174-seat aircraft entered service in 1971 while the last aircraft of this batch joined the fleet in 1973. By that time, four of the airline's nine Comet 4Bs had already been withdrawn from service and sold to rival British charter airlines.
The 1973 oil crisis in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, which led to a quadrupling of the price of a barrel of oil, substantially increased the operating costs of the remaining fuel-thirsty Comets and began to have an adverse impact on the airline's financial performance. British Airtours, as the airline had become known following the establishment of British Airways in 1974 as a result of the 1972 BEA—BOAC merger, therefore decided to retire its remaining five Comets at the end of that year's summer season and to sell the entire fleet to independent British operator Dan-Air.
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