Britannia Airways

The World's Largest Holiday Airline

Graham M. Simons

• Publisher: Air World
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781526758798
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Aviation
• Index: Technology & Engineering

A history of the British airline company, featuring details on the aircrafts, routes, and operations, as well as stories from the crews and staff. Founded in 1961 as Euravia by British businessman Ted Langton and aviation consultant J.E.D. Walker, at a time of considerable turmoil for the independent sector of the British air operators' industry, Britannia Airways went on to become the world's largest holiday airline. Just as Court Line evolved from Autair, so Britannia Airways evolved from Euravia. Both UK airlines had strong links with the travel industry; Court Line with Clarksons Holidays, and Britannia with the Thomson Group, in particular the 'Sky Tours' brand. Both were innovative in their own ways, and both grabbed the UK travel industry by the scruff of the neck and shook it into the jet age – Court line traveling down the brasher cheap-and-cheerful road, while Britannia took the more staid, upmarket route. By 1972, Britannia had developed to such a degree that it was the biggest of the British independent charter airlines. It was also a groundbreaking operation—during the late 1960s, it became the first charter airline to offer assigned seating, as well as hot in-flight meals. Prior to the mid-1970s, Britannia, much like other British charter airlines of the era, had concentrated upon low-cost flights to Spain and the use of provincial airports to provide its services. The company's management, however, harbored ambitions to grow beyond this. As a result, for example, Britannia's 767s began regular charter flights between Britain and Australia in 1988, a route to New Zealand being added the following year. Between 1968 and 1984, Britannia carried nearly forty-two million passengers, while the company's fleet grew to include twenty-nine Boeing 737s and a pair of 767s. Drawing on the author's in-depth research and knowledge, as well as firsthand interviews with individuals such as Ted Langton, the original tour operator who wanted his own airline, and Jed Williams, who created Britannia, this the full story of one of the most important airlines in the history of civil aviation.

Chapter 1

Sky Tramps and Travel Agents

With few exceptions, the trickle of British people who went on holiday abroad before the Second World War were looking for adventure or bettering their minds, not to lie around on beaches. Foreign holidays were almost exclusively for the wealthy, starting when the aristocratic ‘grand tour’ of Europe became particularly fashionable in the 18th century. The hardships were many, but by the mid-19th century, the coming of the railways made mass travel affordable. In 1841, Thomas Cook organised his first excursion, by train from Leicester to Loughborough. By 1855 he was leading tours to the continent and by 1866 to the United States, with his first round-the-world tour following in 1872. The focus of such excursions was usually on culture, adventure or health.

By the turn of the century, the first commercially organised British ski trips were heading for the Alps. So it remained until the outbreak of the Great War - when of course, everything stopped. In the nineteen twenties and thirties air travel was very much a luxury item, available to either civil servants travelling on government business or the very wealthy. Clearly, this showed that while foreign travel remained an indulgence mainly of the middle classes and upper classes, by the 1930s its magnetism was slowly drawing in entrepreneurs from humbler backgrounds.

In 1934, South Africa-born British entrepreneur William Heygate Edmund Colborne ‘Billy’ Butlin had the idea for a concept that became synonymous with him - the British holiday camp. Although holiday camps such as Warner’s existed in one form or another before Butlin opened his first, it was Butlin who turned holiday camps into a multi-million-pound industry and an essential aspect of British culture.

Billy Butlin was twelve when his mother emigrated to Canada, leaving him in the care of his aunt for two years. Once settled in Toronto, his mother invited him to join her there.

In Canada, Butlin struggled to fit in at school and soon left for a job in Toronto department store Eatons. In World War One he enlisted as a bugler in the Canadian Army. After the war, Butlin returned to England, with just £5 in his pocket. Investing £4 to hire a stall travelling with his uncle’s fair, Butlin discovered that giving his customers a better chance to win brought more custom in, and he quickly became successful. Soon one stall became several, including prominent locations such as Olympia in London, and Butlin soon was able to purchase other fairground equipment, and started his own travelling fair. He proved successful in this endeavour as well, and by 1927 he opened a static fairground in Skegness. Over the next ten years, Butlin expanded his empire, all the time harbouring an idea to increase the number of patrons in his Skegness site by providing accommodation. Two years later he bought forty acres of land at Ingoldmells near Skegness for £3000, built his first camp and advertised it at £500 for a half-page in the Daily Express. Within a few days, he had received over 10,000 enquiries. It was opened on 11 April 1936 - Easter Saturday - by Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

Thomas Cook (b. 22 November 1808, d.18 July 1892)

An all-inclusive holiday at the camp cost between 35 shillings and £3 a week, depending on the season. Sports personalities coached campers at tennis, snooker and other games, while entertainers performed on the stage. Another of his slogans was ‘A weeks holiday for a week’s pay’ - a clear indication as to where Butlins were targeting their market.

However, behind its jolly Hi-de-Hi! image, the Butlins empire flourished on a mixture of sex and violence. Little did the chalet guests know that Butlin was forced to carry a weapon to defend himself because he’d made so many enemies on his way to the top! It seems that Billy Butlin was a man who associated with many violent people in his early days, and was afraid of retribution, so behind the crisply starched handkerchief, he carried a cut-throat razor in his top pocket all the time!

Billy Butlin was also among the first to realise, that even in the 1930s, sex sells - so single people were targeted as prime customers - for the entrepreneur knew a reputation for bed-hopping among the chalets would pull in the punters.

Butlins’ holiday camps provided apparently innocent fun in postwar Britain and built a reputation for wholesome family entertainment, but both the campers and their Redcoat entertainers enjoyed the seamy side of life, too. Britain was a staid society, but Billy knew many people wanted no-strings sex. Despite - or maybe because of - the camps’ seedy side, Billy Butlin hit on a money-spinning formula - it was shades of Club 18-30 in the years to come! Indeed, he put in place some of the cornerstones of the embryonic package tour industry. Indeed, Butlins Ltd owned and operated several aircraft, and also ran at least one airfield at Ingoldmells for pleasure flying.

The Second World War may have brought foreign holidays to a standstill, but tour operators of the 1930s including Thomas Cook, ski holiday company Inghams and Travel Club of Upminster found there was latent demand – which would be boosted by ex-servicemen wanting to revisit places in which they had fought. Travel Club resumed holidays to Europe in 1947, and its founder, Harry Chandler, recalled: ‘I painted a glowing picture of what Switzerland was like – plenty of food, shops full of goods, virtually pre-war conditions and a complete contrast to England at that time with its shortages, electricity cuts and hard times’.

Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne ‘Billy’ Butlin MBE (b. 29 September 1899 d. 12 June 1980) seen at one of his holiday camps.

Pictures like this subtly hinted at some of the pleasures that could be available if you took a Butlin’s holiday.

Horizon Holidays came into being on 12 October 1949 and initiated the package holiday industry. Its first home was to be on the first floor of 146 Fleet Street, above the Olde Snuffe Shoppe, patronised many years before by the 18th-century English writer and lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson. The entrance was via Wine Office Court.

Vladimir Gavrilovich Raitz (b. Moscow, 23 May 1922 d. 31 August 2010)

Travelling by rail or road across war-torn Europe was not easy, and when a Russian émigré named Vladimir Raitz set up Horizon Holidays in 1950, he decided that his customers would fly from London to Corsica rather than undergo the forty-eight-hour journey by rail and sea that he had made the previous year. By chartering a series of weekly flights to a beachfront campsite, he is generally considered to be the inventor of the package holiday.

He was later to recall that first holiday: ‘1949 - It was my first holiday after the war. I chose Calvi on Corsica because a friend of mine, a fellow Russian colleague at Reuters, not only knew Calvi well but had taken part in 1938 in organizing a holiday camp at Calvi run by an émigré Russian water polo club called ‘Les Ourses Blancs’ - the White Bears. Now, after the war and the occupation, this idea had been revived. One of the original White Bears, ‘Poff’ - Dimitri Filipoff - had formed the Club Olympique, a tented village on the beach at Calvi. A friend of mine from Reuters, Baron Nicholas Steinheil, was staying there and had invited me for a fortnight’s holiday’.

By all accounts, the installations and living conditions were primitive, to put it mildly. The tents were ‘furnished’ with camp beds: two, three or four to each tent, standing directly on the sand. You were expected to keep your clothes in your suitcase throughout the stay.

Ablutions and other essential human functions were performed in a ‘Bloc Sanitaire’ consisting of washing and showering cubicles, and toilets. There was no main drainage. If the toilets were all occupied, one went out into the sweet-smelling Corsican shrubbery to relieve oneself.

The bar functioned beautifully. Drinks coupons were purchased by the booklet from Mario, the head barman. Prices were extremely low, and after half a dozen pastis and a few cognacs after dinner, who cared about the sanitation? The wine was included in the overall price and flowed freely.

In addition to the tents, sanitary block, bar, and ‘restaurant’ there was a small but perpetually crowded dance floor where the band that had greeted the new arrivals was performing after dinner to an appreciative audience. In 1949 tangos, paso dobles and slow waltzes were much in demand, so it was not surprising that romance flourished. It was a world away from, tired, dreary grey post-war Britain.

Towards the end of his stay at the Club in 1949, Vladimir Raitz was having a drink with Baron Nicholas Steinheil in the bar who told him that his father and another White Bears member, Tao Khan, had excellent connections with the Calvi Mayor and the Municipal Council, and could get a concession on a large piece of land right on the beach between the Club and the town. ‘We’ll get some tents and equipment, and you can get us some British clients to supplement the French. We’ll advertise in the Metro stations in Paris, and it’s up to you how you get your clientele. If you want, we’ll even call it the Club Franco-Britannique. You can do the work in your spare time, and we’ll pay you a commission on each client.’

The suggestion interested Raitz, but he was concerned about the travelling time: he knew it would be at least 48 hours in each direction. He asked if there was an airport nearby.

‘Not precisely an airport, but there’s a runway built by the American Seabees during the war. Mind you, there are no airport buildings - not even a shack. I’m sure the Municipality could provide something, though. Why don’t you charter some planes when you get back to London? We’ll be opening the Club in May next year, and you can have sole rights for the UK.’ Raitz was to hit problems with governmental approval for what he was proposing, but this was eventually overcome. In early March 1950, a phone call came from the civil servant at the Ministry of Civil Aviation: ‘Come round as soon as possible, we have a decision for you’.

Raitz grabbed a taxi to Ariel House.’ ‘I’m not sure whether you’ll like the decision, or even if you’ll be able to proceed at all. But you can operate your flights if you carry students and teachers only.’

It seems that a way forward had been found to allow Horizon to fly, by the expedient of using the 1945 Labour Election manifesto which was to encourage ‘adult education’ and for ‘…people to enjoy their leisure to the full, to have opportunities for healthy recreation’.

The implications behind the decision eventually proved to be monumental. Thomas Cook started it all by taking groups of like-minded people on journeys. Here now was a civil service department acting on government instructions, dictating to a tour operator what ‘profession’ and ‘interests’ their clients could be and have, a concept that eventually became known as ‘Affinity Group Charters’

The journey time by Douglas DC-3 aircraft, at a top speed of 170 mph, was a mere six hours, including a refuelling stop in Lyon. Horizon soon faced competition, but not from Thomas Cook, who preferred to operate cultural and adventure tours while acting as an agent for rail, sea, coach and air companies. The pre-war companies, including Sir Henry Lunn Travel and the Polytechnic Touring Association, which later merged to form Lunn Poly, also expanded into air travel.

Air Contractors used Dakotas and Miles Aerovans, as shown here with G-AISI.

Lancashire Aircraft Corporation’s Halifax G-AKEC. (both author’s collection)

Railway Air Services Dakota G-AGZB coming in to land. This, and a number of other airlines would soon disappear, merged into British European Airways. (author’s collection)

An unidentifiable British European Airways Dakota. (author’s collection)

Most pre-war British airlines had earned their living flying scheduled services: and for the post-war airlines, this remained their chief ambition. However, by prohibiting private airlines from operating these services, the Government hoped that it would stifle the infant industry, leaving the Corporations with a clear field. But in this, it failed.

There was a brief opportunity for so-called ‘charter’ airlines to exploit the enormous demand for travel as soon ...