British Caledonian in The 1970s - Inception

Inception

On St. Andrew's Day in 1970, Caledonian Airways acquired British United Airways (BUA) from British and Commonwealth (B&C) for £6.9 million. Caledonian Airways also purchased three new BAC One-Eleven 500 aircraft, which B&C had leased to BUA, for a further £5 million.

Caledonian's acquisition of BUA from B&C did not include the assets of British United Island Airways (BUIA), BUA's regional affiliate.

BCal was a wholly owned subsidiary of Caledonian Airways Ltd. BCal itself had a number of subsidiaries as well. Amongst these were Caledonian Airways Equipment Holdings and Caledonian Airways (Leasing), which were set up to acquire and dispose of aircraft on behalf of the airline as well as to sell maintenance, training and management expertise to third parties. BCal also owned two package holiday companies as well as several hotels in Spain and Sierra Leone. BCal furthermore inherited BUA's minority stakes in Gambia Airways, Sierra Leone Airways and Uganda Aviation Services.

The airline's formation followed publication of the Edwards report entitled British Air Transport in the Seventies in 1969. It recommended the creation of a "Second Force", private sector carrier to take on the state-owned corporations — British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) — by providing competing domestic and international scheduled services on trunk routes.

The new airline established its headquarters and operational base at Gatwick Airport and Sir Adam Thomson, one of the five co-founders as well as one of the main shareholders of Caledonian Airways, became its chairman and managing director.

BCal was a full member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) at its inception itself as a result of inheriting BUA's membership. This included membership of IATA's trade association as well as participation in tariff co-ordination with other member airlines in the organisation's annual traffic conferences. BCal moreover had its own air freight terminal at Heathrow.

The fleet inherited from its predecessors comprised 31 jet aircraft: 11 long-haul aircraft and 20 short-haul planes. The merged entity's issued share capital was £12 million — more than that of any other wholly private, British independent airline at the time — and its workforce numbered 4,400. This made BCal the UK's foremost independent airline of the time. (Although Dan-Air and Britannia Airways exceeded BCal's total annual passenger numbers from 1975, BCal maintained its position as Britain's leading independent international scheduled airline, in terms of both the number of scheduled passengers carried each year and the total yearly scheduled capacity measured in passenger kilometres, throughout its 17-year existence.) The newly created company's output measured in available capacity tonne kilometres was greater than that of some of the smaller, contemporary European flag carriers, such as Aer Lingus, Sabena or Swissair. By that measure, BCal was about the same size as Australia's flag carrier Qantas.

The institutional investors that had helped Sir Adam Thomson and John de la Haye launch Caledonian Airways back in 1961 were also among the shareholders of the newly constituted airline. They included the Automobile Association (AA), Great Universal Stores (GUS), Hogarth Shipping, Lyle Shipping, Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation (ICFC) — one of the two predecessors of Investors in Industry, Kleinwort Benson, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Schroders. (Airways Interests (Thomson), which had been set up at Caledonian's inception a decade earlier as an investment vehicle for that airline's founders to enable them to maintain control, was renamed Caledonian Airways Ltd and became the new group holding company.)

Before adopting the British Caledonian name, the new airline legally constituted two separate entities — Caledonian Airways (Prestwick) Ltd and British United Airways Ltd. These traded together under the interim name Caledonian//BUA until September 1971. The combined airline carried a total of 2.6 million passengers during its first year of operation.

For accounting purposes, BCal's aircraft were respectively allocated to a "BUA Division" and "Caledonian Division" during the interim period. The former was responsible for all IATA activities. This encompassed all scheduled services. The latter was responsible for all non-IATA work. This included all non-scheduled operations. At that time, two-thirds of all passengers were carried on charter flights.

During that period, former BUA air hostesses still wearing that airline's blue uniforms were working alongside their tartan-clad, former Caledonian counterparts in the cabins of all passenger flights. Eventually, the attractive Caledonian tartan uniforms became BCal's standard for female staff.

Following the interim period, Caledonian Airways (Prestwick) Ltd and British United Airways Ltd were merged into British Caledonian Airways Ltd (BCal). All former BUA aircraft were repainted adopting Caledonian's livery featuring a prominent Scottish Lion Rampant on its aircraft's fins. At that time, all aircraft were named after famous Scots and well-known Scottish places. This tradition was continued throughout the airline's 17-year existence. Some BCal aircraft were also allocated out-of-sequence registrations. (For instance, G-BCAL was allocated to one of the Boeing 707s, G-CLAN and G-SCOT were the registrations of the Piper Navajo Chieftains, G-DCIO was the registration of the eighth DC-10 and G-HUGE was the Boeing 747 Combi registration.)

The "Second Force" inherited BUA's extensive network of scheduled routes serving the British Isles, Continental Europe, Africa and South America. Its scheduled ambitions received a major boost when the UK Government agreed to transfer to it BOAC's West African trunk routes to Nigeria and Ghana as well as the corporation's North African route to Libya. These routes represented 3% of BOAC's annual, worldwide turnover. The Government also agreed to let it serve Casablanca in Morocco from Gatwick in competition with BEA's service from Heathrow. Furthermore, the Government agreed to license BCal to operate non-stop scheduled services between London and Paris and to begin negotiations with the French authorities to secure reciprocal approval for BCal to be able to commence scheduled operations on what was then the busiest international air route in Europe. BCal moreover received Government assurances that it would be designated as the UK's sole flag carrier on all routes transferred to it and that it would be assisted in obtaining traffic rights for additional, selected scheduled routes where it wished to compete with the corporations, including the lucrative London—New York and London—Los Angeles routes.

Another important concession by the Government designed to improve the competitiveness of the "Second Force" was to permit it to provide a first class cabin on its East African routes. (BUA, from whom BCal inherited these routes, had been prevented from offering a first class on its East African routes. To compensate for this loss of competitiveness, Sir Freddie Laker, BUA's managing director from 1960 to 1965, had come up with the idea of designing a cargo door to be installed on the left-hand side of the forward fuselage of that airline's long-haul VC10s, where the first class cabin was normally located. This modification permitted the carriage of additional freight instead of first class passengers on the East African routes.)

In addition, BCal became the Government's "chosen instrument of the private sector". This meant that the Government agreed to accord preferential status to BCal's worldwide scheduled ambitions, especially in the award of additional licences to operate scheduled services on major domestic and international trunk routes. The Government hoped that putting BCal's requirements ahead of other UK-based independent airlines' rival scheduled ambitions would help the new "Second Force" develop into a fully fledged, major international scheduled airline, thereby enabling it to achieve the critical mass to challenge the corporations' near-monopoly among UK-based scheduled airlines.

The Central London air terminal at Victoria Station in London's West End, which the "Second Force" inherited from BUA as well, allowed passengers to complete all check-in formalities, including dropping off their hold luggage, before boarding their train to the airport.

BCal also had a Gatwick airside lounge for its premium passengers, which it named Clansmen Lounge.