Falklands War and Re-entry Into The Charter Market
The 1982 Falklands War was an unexpected, major setback for BCal. Argentina's decision to close its airspace and airports to all UK-based airlines as well as to all UK-registered aircraft and Peru's decision to follow suit resulted in the loss of the most profitable parts of BCal's South American network, especially Buenos Aires — its most profitable destination in that part of the world — and the lucrative "fifth freedom" traffic rights between Madrid and Buenos Aires. That conflict left the airline with an unprofitable rump network because the remaining routes to Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia did not generate sufficient traffic to be profitable on their own, even after a reduction in frequencies. Another negative consequence for BCal was that one of its eight McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 widebodied jets suddenly became surplus to its long-haul scheduled requirements, forcing the airline to look for alternative work to increase long-haul fleet utilisation.
Laker Airways's collapse at the beginning of February of that year provided BCal with additional work to utilise its spare aircraft capacity.
Laker Airways's demise also enabled BCal to relaunch a daily service between Gatwick and Los Angeles, to acquire six aircraft from the failed carrier's estate and to move into the hangar it had occupied at Gatwick. The ex-Laker aircraft that joined BCal's fleet included two DC-10-10s and four BAC One-Eleven 300s. BCal used the former aircraft to set up a new charter subsidiary named British Caledonian Airways Charter. The latter aircraft and three second-hand One-Eleven 500s that had been acquired from other sources replaced BCal's seven, ageing One-Eleven 200s.
Despite being a difficult year for BCal, it managed to stay in the black during that period. The airline made a pre-tax profit of £1.1 million, which translated into a £300,000 retained profit, in the financial year to 31 October 1982.
Read more about this topic: British Caledonian In The 1980s
Famous quotes containing the words falklands, war, charter and/or market:
“If we were doing this in the Falklands they would love it. It’s part of our heritage. The British have always been fighting wars.”
—British soccer fan. quoted in Independent (London, Dec. 23, 1988)
“The idea that information can be stored in a changing world without an overwhelming depreciation of its value is false. It is scarcely less false than the more plausible claim that after a war we may take our existing weapons, fill their barrels with cylinder oil, and coat their outsides with sprayed rubber film, and let them statically await the next emergency.”
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“When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. You heard of that market crash in ‘29? I predicted that.... I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said; nerves, I said. Then I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?” “Overproduction,” I says. “Collapse.””
—John Michael Hayes (b. 1919)