These were two small-scale airlines, one was Cambrian Airways, and the other was, in 1971, Northeast. They both came into the full ownership of BEA in the mid-1960s, and their Viscounts had been transferred from there. Northeast was, until a couple of years previously, named BKS, the initials of its founders who were no longer involved - in fact the "K", Mike Keegan, was one of those serial airline entrepreneurs who was now running other airline(s) - plural. They had developed a bit of a niche in the North-East of England, hence the new name. BEA put these shareholdings into a holding company called British Air Services, who made a half-hearted attempt to use their own name, but shortly after all this effort it was all rolled up with the BEA-BOAC merger into the new British Airways. As most routes of both airlines had once been BEA, and were passed down as unprofitable to a large operator, it was a bit of a "what goes around-comes around" situation.

Quite what Northeast Airlines in the USA thought of a major European airline not only renaming their subsidiary Northeast, but adopting a bright yellow livery decidedly similar to the Yellowbird colours I can't say.

By 1971 they had the last ever airworthy Bristol Britannia 100 as a standby aircraft, it used to do a lot of standing in for the Northeast Tridents on London to Newcastle, not so much because these were unreliable as because they were very regularly hired out to BEA themselves to cover aircraft shortages - just like the Comet 4Bs which BEA took out of service and passed on to their charter subsidiary at Gatwick, BEA Airtours, were very regularly back at Heathrow long after they were supposedly withdrawn from there, standing in for the Tridents of the main company. That Brit last ran, as I described above, on the last Heathrow to Newcastle flight on New Year's Eve 1971, moments before it's certificate expired, it never flew again and was scrapped in the weeds in a remote corner of Newcastle airport some time later.

Cambrian got a handful of secondhand One-Elevens, from Autair when they changed over to the multi-coloured Court Line fleet. One was sometimes used on Liverpool to Heathrow, but most were chartered out on holiday flights to the Mediterranean, or, once again, to poor jet-starved BEA - one was frequently over in Berlin on German internal services.

I may have got on the first ever Cambrian One-Eleven commercial flight.

We had an interesting geography master at school near Liverpool, close to retirement, who was one of a number of school "lifers" of his generation there - had once been a boy, returned after university and taught there all his career, now being head of his department and universally respected. One day around Christmas 1969 he announced that a "contact" had made known a sightseeing flight from Liverpool airport the next Saturday, would any of the class like to go. It was £10. Cambrian Airways, so obviously a Viscount as that was all they had. Just a couple of us (plus him) signed up, off we went to the classic old 1930s art-deco Liverpool terminal that is now a hotel building - and there was their first ever One-Eleven jet, in fresh Cambrian paint. A hugely thundering run up against the brakes and then Wham ! down the runway, with other teenaged schoolkids, plus aviation buffs. I do wonder if our master was a closet aviation club member. I recall heading forward for the obligatory flight deck visit as we approached Stranraer in Scotland, and seeing the car ferries at the terminal there from the forward windows, but also there were four, at least, four-ringer captains squashed into the small flight deck, of what was I now conclude obviously part of the crew training on the new aircraft. We touched down at Belfast and then went back to Liverpool at altitude, while, extraordinarily (for you USA 21st century travellers), the two stewardesses produced a serving cart full of snacks and drinks for us all. And that was my last trip by Cambrian. None of their old network survived for long under BA. They had given me my first ever flight, Viscount 700 G-AMOO from Liverpool to Isle of Man, so it's an airline I recall fondly. Here is that first-ever One-Eleven of theirs, G-AVOF, large Cambrian titles and little British Air Services supplementary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BA...0_edited-2.jpg