Caledonian Airways

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Caledonian Airways was a Scottish international airline formed in 1961, initially using Douglas DC-7s. It was founded by John de la Haye and Adam Thomson, and initially was a successful charter operation.

In November 1970, the airline bought and merged with British United Airways. After two years, having used the interim name "Caledonian//BUA", the airline was renamed British Caledonian Airways. British Caledonian became Europe's largest independent airline, with an extensive global route network.

[edit] Accidents and incidents

A Douglas DC-7C (Registration G-ARUD) crashed on 4 March 1962 at Douala, Cameroon. Caledonian Flight 153 crashed on take-off into a swamp and 101 passengers and 10 crew died. The cause was jammed right elevator spring tab which caused the aircraft to fail to climb. This is the only fatal incident in the airline's history.

[edit] Second incarnation

British Airways took over British Caledonian in the late 1980s and created an airline from both its British Airtours charters subsidiary and the BCal Charter subsidiary, and this airline was once again called Caledonian Airways.

Through the 1990s the British charter airline market underwent significant price driven consolidation. The airlines flying older types almost all went under or were absorbed. Caledonian was in a strong position, it had newer types (including brand new A320s, and relatively modern wide-body aircraft including DC-10s and TriStars).

This subsidiary was finally sold by British Airways to the Carlson Group which rebranded the airline simply as 'Caledonian', ICAO code: CKT. The blue and gold colour scheme of the aircraft remained the same. The airline became part of the JMC group (along with Flying Colours) in the late 1990s which resulted in the aircraft forming part of the new JMC Air fleet in March 2000. The Caledonian name and colours were lost to the new bright green colours of JMC. JMC Air changed name again for the summer season of 2002 to Thomas Cook Airlines. Thomas Cook retired the former Caledonian DC-10s that were in their fleet, replacing them with Airbus A330-200s. Thomas Cook Airlines still operates some of the newer A320s that were delivered to Caledonian shortly before their takeover by the JMC group.