British United Island Airways

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British Island Airways was a regional airline operating routes from its base at Gatwick to a variety of locations within the British Isles. Its origins can be traced to the acquisition of Jersey Airlines and Silver City by BUA in 1962. BUA then amalgamated the Channel Island scheduled passenger and freight services of these airlines (named the Duchess Services by Jersey Airlines) to create a single airline, British United Island Airways (BUIA).

As the domestic arm of BUA, BUIA competed from Gatwick against BEA’s scheduled domestic services which operated principally from Heathrow. Not only were BEA the largest domestic carrier in the 1960s but they also had legislation that protected this status. For example the 1947 Industrial Organisation and Development Act and the 1949 Civil Aviation Act combined to ensure the operation of independent airlines was only permitted only if they were “associates” of either of the two national carriers.

Nevertheless BUIA sought to expand its network and on the 1st November 1968 it acquired Morton Air Services (who had coincidently been an “Associate” of BEA in 1949).

BUIA also undertook a gradual fleet homogenisation and retirement programme by replacing the inherited mixed fleet of De Havilland Herons, Vickers Viscounts, and Douglas DC-3s, with Handley Page Heralds. By 1968 BUIA had operated its last passenger DC-3 flight and become an all Herald fleet with DC-3 freighter back-up.

Despite BUIA’s growth its parent company was experiencing severe financial problems resulting in the merger between BUA and the Scottish independent airline, Caledonian Airways in 1970. This merger allowed BUIA to exist as an independent airline and its name was altered to British Island Airways (BIA) in order to reflect this.

BIA later merged with a number of other domestic airlines to form Air UK which later again became KLM UK.

In the late 1970's BIA capitalised on the growing seasonal traffic to Mediterranean destinations and ordered the BAC 1-11 to cater for this. These were followed by larger BAC 1-11 500s and the McDonnell-Douglas MD-83s which arrived in 1983 after BIA's charter operation was re-established as an independent company separate from the Air UK operation.

However, the onset of further economic recession forced BIA to cease operations in 1990.