Originally Posted by
skipness1E
BA had a Gatwick based British Airways subsidiary called British Airtours which worked very well. They used to swap aircraft and lease crews to mainline BA as seasonality dictated, they even had an almost identical livery and branding making aircraft swaps fairly painless. They even had their own crews and AOC.
Which all continued long into KT being rebranded from British Airtours to Caledonian Airways. The wool jackets and long skirts always an interesting but very smart looking uniform choice for flying to holiday sunspots around the Med and the Caribbean. It always seemed a shame that after BA sold them (including the L-1011 fleet) to Inspirations, they gained such a reputation for being unreliable. By the time Thomas Cook got their hands on them, besides not wanting to pay the licensing fee to BA for the use of the Caledonian name and brand, I sadly don’t think that the name was still so well liked enough to keep it and not to phase it out in favour of Flying Colours, and in turn, JMC.