Caledonian Airways was a Scottish international airline formed in 1961, initially using Douglas DC-7s.

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.

Second incarnation

British Airways took over British Caledonian in the late1980s 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 90s 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 widebodys including DC-10s and TriStars). Thus Caledonain absorbed two previously significant UK charter operators Dan-Air and AirEurope

This subsidiary was finally sold by BA to the Carlson group which rebranded the airline simply as 'Caledonian', flight 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 Colors ) 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.

External links

Detailed history of Caledonian Airways