The story
Formative era
Channel Airways was one of the earliest, post-World War II British independent airlines. Former Royal Air Force squadron leader Reginald "Jack" Jones founded an air company in June 1946 as an aerial joy ride business, which was incorporated as East Anglian Flying Services on 16 August 1946. The new airline was majority-owned by Jones and his family, who held more than 80% of its shares.
Commercial operations commenced on 16 August 1946 with a single, early-1930s vintage, three-seat Puss Moth, offering joy rides at 10s (50p as of early-2012) a time from a landing strip near the Kent seaside town of Herne Bay. Soon after, this aircraft also operated air taxi flights to destinations all over the UK.
On 5 January 1947, East Anglian moved its base across the Thames estuary to Southend Municipal Airport near Southend-on-Sea in Essex, only four days after its re-opening as a civil airport. The move to Southend Airport led to the conclusion of an "associate" agreement with British European Airways (BEA) enabling the introduction of a regular Southend–Rochester feeder service in June 1948, East Anglian's first scheduled route as well as the first scheduled service from Southend.
Nineteen forty-eight was the year East Anglian operated its first IT charter flight from Southend to Ostend in conjunction with two British travel agents, the exact month June. By winter 1948, a huge expansion of the fledgling airline's pleasure flying and charter business resulted in acquisition of seven additional aircraft. These included five de Havilland Dragon Rapides, a Miles Aerovan and an Airspeed Courier. One of East Anglian's engagements at the time included a one-off round-trip to Cyprus carrying a party of schoolboys, which was operated by a Miles Aerovan lacking radio equipment and an autopilot.
Following a successful first year on the Southend–Ostend charter run, East Anglian obtained a scheduled service licence for the route, as well as a Southend–Jersey scheduled licence.
The 1950s
Government restrictions on overseas travel and the introduction of exchange controls in 1951 caused a severe contraction of the travel market, resulting in the collapse of numerous small independent airlines in the UK. The industry's grave situation necessitated drastic cutbacks at East Anglian to ensure its survival. All commercial activities other than pleasure flying ceased and only two full-time employees remained on the company's payroll – Jones himself and an office boy. While Jones drove his passengers to and from Southend Airport, the boy was left in charge of a kiosk on Southend's seafront selling tickets.
Following a gradual pickup in demand, East Anglian brought back into service aircraft that had been laid up during the slump, re-hired laid-off employees and, in 1953, obtained a lease on the grass airfield at Ipswich Airport as a secondary base for its charter operations and a future feeder point on its scheduled network. During that period, East Anglian concluded a new "associate" agreement with BEA, which led to the award of its first long-term scheduled licence on the Southend–Ostend route from August 1952. Additional scheduled services were launched from Southend and Portsmouth to Paris as well as from Portsmouth to Jersey while some Southend–Jersey services featured additional stops in Rochester, Shoreham and Guernsey. A Southend–Rotterdam link followed in October 1956.
During the 1950s, East Anglian also began the process of augmenting and eventually replacing pre-war aircraft designs such as the Dragon Rapide with more modern equipment, starting with the acquisition of three de Havilland Doves from West African Airways Corporation in 1954. By the end of 1957, a year that saw nearly 30,000 passengers fly with East Anglian, two Bristol 170s had joined the fleet. These aircraft were the airline's first bulk carriers.
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Nineteen fifty-seven was also the year former World War II pilot, Jackie Moggridge, joined East Anglian Flying Services as its first female pilot. She would become a captain on the DC-3 and Dove fleets. In 1958, the first two Vikings joined the airline's fleet. During the early-1960s, East Anglian added several Douglas DC-3s as well as a single Douglas DC-4, quickening the pace of its fleet modernisation programme.
The 1960s
On 29 October 1962, East Anglian Flying Services officially changed its name to Channel Airways Ltd. This name had first appeared on the company's aircraft as long ago as 1952, but the previous name was retained as the officially registered one until the somewhat similarly sounding Channel Air Bridge name became defunct to avoid any confusion. By that time, Channel Airways operated frequent scheduled passenger and freight services from Southend, Ipswich and Rochester to the Channel Islands, Rotterdam, Ostend and Paris as well as from Portsmouth to the Channel Islands.
The airline also held licences to operate vehicle ferry services from Bristol to Dublin, Cork, Jersey, and Bilbao, as well as from Southend to Jersey and Bilbao. It furthermore applied for traffic rights to operate a vehicle ferry service between Liverpool and Dublin. Moreover, the company ran regular, 52-seat luxury express coach services linking Norwich with Ipswich as well as Eastbourne, Brighton, Worthing, London, Reading, Basingstoke and Guildford with Portsmouth. (There were also special coaches linking up with corporate shuttle services the company operated under contract to the Ford Motor Company between Southend and the airports serving the latter's continental plants.) In addition, IT and general passenger and freight charter services, which accounted for a growing share of the firm's business, were operated while rival Southend-based independent airline Tradair Ltd. equipped with Vickers Vikings and a couple of Vickers Viscount 700s was fully absorbed on 31 December 1962.
In 1963, Channel Airways acquired its first turboprop airliner, a Vickers Viscount 700 series inherited from Tradair. That year also marked the beginning of the airline's large-scale expansion into IT charters from Manchester and Southend. This saw the operation of 71-seat Viscounts and a Douglas DC-4 in a high-density, 88-seat layout from Manchester and other UK airports to the Mediterranean and Ostend respectively.
The arrival of Channel's first turbine-powered aircraft coincided with the introduction of a new Continental Airlines-derived "Golden Jet"-themed livery that was subsequently adopted for all Viscounts, HS 748s, One-Elevens and Tridents, with minor variations for each sub-fleet. This was one of the few marketing gimmicks in which the airline indulged and marked a major departure from its refusal to build a brand identity or to engage in prestige promotion to keep costs down.
By the mid-1960s, Channel Airways had acquired another nine Viscount 700s. Seven of these were former BEA aircraft while the remaining two were sourced from Bahamas Airways and Starways respectively. In addition to these aircraft, Channel also purchased 11 Viscount 812s from Continental Airlines and four new Hawker Siddeley 748s to support a rapidly growing number of IT flights and regional scheduled services along the UK's South Coast, between the South Coast, the Channel Islands and the Continent, as well as from Manchester Airport to continental destinations. The latter aircraft operated most of the airline's schedules serving the grass airfields.
Although IT operations generated about half its revenues by that time, making Channel one of the UK's foremost contemporary charter operators, senior management preferred to think of it as primarily a scheduled carrier, keeping in mind their longer-term corporate ambitions to operate more domestic links from Southend and to extend the network's reach beyond the Channel coast and Paris to new destinations in Europe and North Africa.
Channel Airways received its first ex-Continental Viscount 812 at Southend in April 1966. The aircraft participated in that year's Biggin Hill Air Fair. The fact that the ex-Continental Viscounts already wore the livery that was similar in appearance to the recently adopted Golden-themed livery as used on their other aircraft enabled Channel Airways to save costs by only changing the name on these planes and making a few other, minor adjustments.
In September 1966, Channel Airways announced its first jet aircraft order comprising four BAC One-Eleven 400 series plus two options. That order was worth £5.5 million. These aircraft were the first jets to join the fleet, the first of which arrived at the company's Southend base on 15 June 1967. Nineteen sixty-six was also the year Channel arranged a 21-year lease on the grass field at Ipswich.
1967
By May 1967, Channel Airways had taken delivery of the remaining Viscount 800s from Continental. By that time, it had also retired and sold the last 700s and placed a follow-on order for another two One-Eleven 400s.
Despite being an established One-Eleven customer that was widely expected to order the stretched One-Eleven 500, Channel Airways instead ordered two Hawker Siddeley Trident 1E series jetliners on 5 October 1967, for £8 million. This order was the culmination of a successful sales campaign by Hawker Siddeley, which went out of its way to find a customer for its remaining five unsold Trident 1Es that were nearing completion on the production line at Hatfield in mid-1967.
By that time, most UK independent airlines that were in the market for short-haul jet aircraft – including Channel Airways – had already committed themselves to the BAC One-Eleven, the Trident's more economical and ultimately more successful, home-grown rival. For want of viable alternatives and despite Channel Airways's reputation as financially weak, Hawker Siddeley began sales negotiations with the airline in August 1967. To clinch the deal, the manufacturer guaranteed the airline a 20% reduction in seat-mile costs over the standard Trident 1E. This modified Trident 1E was dubbed the Trident 140 and featured a 1,500 lb (680 kg) higher gross weight and more powerful engines than other Trident 1/2 variants, stronger floors and additional emergency exits to make it suitable for Channel's European IT operations in a high-density seating arrangement. With a full payload of 139 passengers seated at a 31 in (79 cm) pitch, it had a range of 1,930 mi (3,110 km) or 2,570 mi (4,140 km) with 100 passengers in a lower-density seating configuration. The latter brought the Canary Islands within the aircraft's non-stop range from the UK and West Berlin. Not only were these the last five 1E series built, but they were also the first Tridents ordered by a UK independent airline. The arrival of Channel's first Trident at the airline's Southend base in May 1968 coincided with the delivery of its second One-Eleven. Channel's first Trident operated the airline's first revenue service with the type on 13 June of that year, when the aircraft departed Southend for Barcelona via Teesside, while the second example was displayed at the following month's Farnborough Airshow. Channel also took advantage of the Trident's higher cruising speed by promoting the type's 3-hour 15-minute non-stop flying time between Stansted and Las Palmas as the fastest flight from anywhere in the UK to the Canaries.
As Channel's new jets suffered range and payload restrictions at Southend due to its short runway and the introduction of the One-Eleven at the airport led to growing complaints about the aircraft's take-off noise, this resulted in Stansted becoming the main operating base in 1968.
Nineteen sixty-eight was furthermore the year Channel reduced its outstanding jet aircraft orders due to the difficult economic situation in the UK during that time, especially the sterling devaluation and a tightening of the existing exchange control regime that limited passengers to £50 a trip. This resulted in cancellation of three remaining orders each for Tridents and One-Elevens, and only two and three examples respectively joining the airline's fleet.
The introduction of these jet aircraft enabled Channel Airways to become a major provider of charter airline seats to the leading package tour operators in the UK from bases at Southend, Stansted, Bristol, Cardiff, East Midlands, Manchester and Teesside.
Channel's increasing dependence on the IT market made it a highly seasonal airline, with pronounced peaks and troughs in activity and aircraft utilisation. Each year, the end of the winter trough was followed by a six-week period of intense activity starting in April, when the company's aircraft were contracted by Clarksons to ferry British tourists to and from Rotterdam for the Dutch bulbfield season from ten UK departure points.
The end of this season in mid-May also marked the beginning of the actual summer season, when the firm's planes commenced flying holidaymakers from the UK to Majorca, the Spanish mainland and Morocco under contract to the leading contemporary providers of package holidays in the UK. Flights to other Mediterranean resorts – chiefly in Italy and other Adriatic regions – started the following month. During the peak period in July and August, aircraft operated round-the-clock, plying scheduled routes during the day and serving IT destinations at night. The resulting increase in utilisation meant that aircraft spent as little as 40 minutes on the ground between flights. By mid-September, the IT programme began winding down, with flights to Italy ending first due to its short holiday season.
Flights to Majorca and certain Spanish mainland destinations continued right until the end of the summer charter season in late-October. To avoid having aircraft sit idly on the ground during the lean winter months, when ad hoc charters and a small number of year-round scheduled services replaced the intensive summer IT programme and busy summer schedule, spare capacity was leased out. In addition, all heavy maintenance was scheduled to take place during this period.
The rapid growth in Channel's IT business furthermore resulted in establishment of Mediterranean Holidays as its in-house tour operating subsidiary. This enabled the airline to take maximum advantage of the booming package holiday market while at the same time reducing its dependence on third party tour operators.
Channel Airways held the record for operating the UK charter airline industry's tightest seating configurations. For example, it managed to fit as many as 88 seats into its Douglas DC-4s, 139 seats into its Trident 1Es, as many as 99 seats into its One-Eleven 400s and as many as 83 and 56 seats into its Viscount 810s and HS 748s respectively. These were the highest-density seating configurations of any of the aforementioned aircraft types' operators.
Channel Airways also became known for pressing into service aircraft it had acquired secondhand with only minimal changes to the previous operators' aircraft liveries, i.e. merely taping over those operators' names with its own.
By the end of the decade, Channel Airways had established itself as one of the UK's leading independent airlines, operating domestic and international scheduled passenger and freight services from East Midlands, Ipswich, Norwich, Stansted, Southend, Portsmouth and Bournemouth to the Channel Islands, Rotterdam, Ostend, Paris, Rimini, Palma and Barcelona. Between 1965 and 1968, it recorded annual profits in excess of £500,000. The Scottish Flyer was the name of a twice-daily multi-stop, bus stop type scheduled service Channel operated with modified, 69-seat Viscount 812s featuring a large baggage compartment inside the aircraft's cabin. This service ran for a brief period from January until November 1969 between Southend and Aberdeen, with six four- to five-minute long, engine-running intermediate stops, including Luton, East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, Teesside, Newcastle and Edinburgh. (While the aircraft was on the ground with its two starboard engines kept running, passengers were required to load/unload their own baggage.) The Scottish Flyer North-South bus stop service was complemented by a similar, short-lived east–west service linking Norwich with Liverpool via an intermediate stop at East Midlands, where aircraft were scheduled to meet to enable passengers to make omnidirectional connections. That year also saw a short-lived attempt to rename the airline as Air England; the new titles only appeared on a single Heron 1B.
The 1970s and closure
Channel Airways' inability to raise sufficient funds to pay for the outstanding One-Eleven and Trident orders that were placed with the aircraft's manufacturers during the second half of the 1960s left it with no spare capacity to take on additional charter contracts during the peak summer season, such as the 1970 award of a major, two-year contract to operate IT flights on behalf of Lyons Tours. The only way the airline was able to fulfil its contractual obligations towards Lyons under these circumstances was to acquire five ex-BEA de Havilland Comet 4B series for £2 million, which resulted in a significant increase in its charter capacity. Unlike the other aircraft in Channel's fleet, the Comets continued to be flown in BEA's basic paint scheme, with the BEA logo and the Union Flag removed from the tail and forward, lower fuselage respectively, and the BEA name taped over with Channel Airways's name on the upper fuselage. They also continued to be flown in a comparatively spacious, 109-seat, single class configuration.
In September 1970, a consortium of three West German tour operators awarded Channel Airways lucrative contracts to carry holidaymakers from West Berlin to the Mediterranean. These were worth £11 million per annum and resulted in the opening of a base at the city's Tegel Airport, where two aircraft – a Trident and a One-Eleven – were stationed from March 1971 to operate more than 50 weekly round-trips during the peak summer season.
Following the induction of the Comet into Channel Airways's fleet, the airline began using Comets and Tridents from West Berlin's city centre Tempelhof Airport as the airport's runways had been extended to about 7,000 ft (2,100 m) by that time to improve operational performance and safety. Although the lengthened runways were still too short to permit the operation of commercially viable long-haul flights, it was sufficient to make commercial operations with most contemporary short- and medium-haul jet aircraft types on shorter routes viable. These flights were additional to Channel's flying programme from its West Berlin base at Tegel.
By the early-1970s, charter flights accounted for 60% of the airline's revenue.
In January 1971, Channel Airways received UK, US and Canadian permission to operate transatlantic "affinity group" charters. A pair of long-haul Boeing 707s were to be purchased to commence North Atlantic operations to the United States and Canada later that year.
Channel Airways's failure to enter the transatlantic affinity charter market was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to establish itself as the UK's third scheduled domestic trunk airline (in addition to BEA and British Caledonian), when partial approval of an application made to the UK Air Transport Licensing Board (ATLB) in early-1971 to fly from Stansted to Newcastle, Belfast and Glasgow resulted in the ATLB's decision to provisionally license Channel Airways to fly between Stansted and Glasgow from May 1972 being ultimately reversed under pressure from BEA.
From Wikipedia’s article on Channel Airways, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3