Caledonian Airways - Second Incarnation

Second Incarnation

British Airtours, the erstwhile wholly owned charter subsidiary of British Airways, adopted the popular Caledonian Airways brand in April 1988 when the newly privatised British Airways had completed the takeover of its former Gatwick-based rival British Caledonian. It also adopted a modified British Caledonian livery adapted from the contemporary, Landor Associates designed British Airways livery. The newly renamed Caledonian Airways moved its Gatwick operation from the airport's South Terminal into the then brand-new North Terminal, thereby concentrating most of the British Airways group's Gatwick services in the new terminal.

Caledonian Airways began replacing its Boeing 737 narrowbodies with additional ex-British Airways L-1011 Tristar widebodies and a number of brand-new Boeing 757s sourced from the large 757 orders placed by its parent company. The former British Airtours 737s were re-configured in British Airways's contemporary short-haul two-class cabin arrangement and began replacing the BAC One-Eleven 500s British Airways had inherited from British Caledonian on the UK flag carrier's short-haul Gatwick routes.

In 1995, British Airways decided to exit the short- to medium-haul package holiday market and sell Caledonian Airways to UK-based tour operator Inspirations, then part of the US-owned Carlson group, along with its core fleet of five Tristars. Following Caledonian's sale to Inspirations, the 757s were returned to British Airways.

Inspirations became part of the Thomas Cook group in 1999 when Caledonian Airways was merged with the Flying Colours airline to form JMC Air Services, which in turn became the UK arm of the present day Thomas Cook Airlines.

Following Inspirations' takeover by Thomas Cook, the former Caledonian Airways Tristars were withdrawn from service as these had suffered increasing, widely publicised reliability problems resulting in the travelling public's generally poor perception of Caledonian Airways "Mark Two".