Originally Posted by
UA_Flyer
- After landed in London, we ended at Victoria Station. The reason I remembered it is because we needed to take a train to Torquay, and my father said we needed to go to Paddington to take the train. Did BA fly from the Middle East to LGW in 1977? We could have taken a bus from LHR to Victoria but I thought getting to Victoria seemed more likely from LGW
The BA subsidiary British Airtours did fly regularly from HKG to LGW on the route I gave earlier (I regularly visited HKG enroute to/from NZ in the 1970s) and they were the ones who had 707s, the gas guzzlers that got folded into BA after Airtours was wound down in the late 1970s. Dubai was the big refuelling station for Airtours. At the time Airtours had services that met things like troop / police / Royal Navy movements, but comparatively cheap tickets were sold to the public too. They ran the HKG service only to LGW, never LHR and yes that would feed you to Victoria Station, particularly if you had a lot of luggage since there was an arrangement with British Rail to handle that. However BA also ran a dedicated bus service to the Imperial Airways Empire Terminal by Victoria Coach Station - older forumites will recall these buses had a trailer rig unit on tow for the luggage. I think it was faster than the tube service today, the tube only (effectively) got to T1 in 1978 though there were some services in 1977. The bus services continued for a while after the Piccadilly line opened, but the Empire Terminal - usually known as the BA Terminal Victoria - closed in 1978 and the buses went next door to the current Coach Station. This also meant both Victoria Railway Station and Victoria Coach Station/BA Terminal had fully staffed BA check in and luggage facilities. So regardless of LHR or LGW, a lot of passenger journeys started or ended at Victoria.