Airline Name
Caledonian Airways
IATA: KG / ICAO: CKT / Callsign: CALEDONIAN
Country of Origin
United Kingdom
Aircraft Types Used (from those available in WoA)
A320 (A320-200) (6 operated),Some had painted wing fences like above, some didn’t like below. Personally prefer them with,
Batman tail,
No many good ones of this side,
B732 (737-200 Adv) (6 operated),
At MAN,
B742 (747-200B) (1 operated in 1989),
B752 (757-200) (8 operated),
At LGW,
L101 (Lockheed L-1011 TriStar) (10 operated),
At PMI,
DC10 (Douglas DC 10-30) (7 operated),
At FAO,
Why should this airline be added?
Founded by British Airways as a charter carrier just after they slurped up British Caledonian in 1988 (Definitely not to keep the slots at LGW, not at all) by rebranding British Airtours. It operated flights to Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Greece as well as long haul to North America and the Caribbean from London Gatwick and Manchester in the UK. The airline was sold in 1995 to Inspirations, a tour operator, and in 1997, a subsidiary was crated called Peach Air for tour operator Goldcrest.
Inspirations parent company the Carlson Group merged with Thomas Cook who merged Flying Colours with Peach Air and Caledonian to form JMC Air in 2000, itself rebranded to Thomas Cook Airlines in 2003, who ofc merged with MyTravel in 2008.
It would be a good airline to see, maybe with the A320 and 757 as regular contracts and other types as specials, though the L1011’s and DC-10’s were flown until 1999/2000 with 2 of the DC-10’s going on to fly with JMC so it’s be nice to see them too. It was the end of the Caledonian brand and legacy, plus the end of the old competitors to BA, which in reality ended in 1992 with the collapse of Dan Air London (Virgin and later BMI became competitors but never to the same extent).
, also the airline operated the Airbus A300B4 briefly in their fleet as it was leased from Air Scandic between May to November 1999.
