1982 Laker Airways goes bust

Nah! You are only being provocative!!;):D

It certainly was. She has a lot to answer for.

She can’t answer them now, but it is very true that this country still suffers from her activities.

That will warm up some blue blood on here.:rolleyes:

Well that’s one point of view.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan: A Very Political Special Relationship

It certainly was. She has a lot to answer for.

Mr.C yes, affinity. DK, yes: AA DC-10/10, 25/5/79. Found to have been caused by a maintenance procedure involving forklift truck removal of entire pod/pylon, and to no interent design flaw.

[QUOTE=alertken; From 1960-ish US supplementals and UK independents, inc. Freddie’s Air Charter, exploited Advanced Booking Charters, admitted by the IATA cartel for closed groups, by back-dating Membership. l.[/QUOTE]

Was that the (in)famous “Affinity Groups” where you could get cheap transatlantic tickets if you joined the left-handed club or something and said you were travelling to meet fellow left-handers over the pond?

alertken – looks sound to me. Only point, was it not the grounding of the DC10 after the American Airlines crash which lead to payouts and problems for Laker (who obviously used the DC10 as well) rather than the THY crash. Lakers’s point was it was faulty maintenance procedures by AA rather than a problem with the DC10 and it shouldn’t have been grounded worldwide.

There is some very interesting material on pages 159/160 in this book about what we are discussing. Laker filed a civil action against BA and other airlines for forcing it in to bankruptcy by their colluding over pricing, theeby breaching US anti-trust laws.

hip

My point entirely for the collapse. BA admitted this years later. Nothing to do with Thatcher.

ch asked whether Freddie was the father of no-frills. alan has him done down by dark forces.

No and No.

Airline Deregulation – that is, removal of any special, strategic, National Interest status – was a 1976 initiative of Pres. Carter. The Peanut Farmer caused an airline veteran, Herb Kelleher, to introduce peanut fares on a fleet of used 737-200s serving intra-Texas, as Southwest A/L. Tony Ryan at GPA, who in parallel with ILFC in 1977 adapted a financing scheme for US railcars, to make aircraft tax-efficient plays for the capital industry, adapted the Southwest model initially for a very narrow business of serving second homes of Brits, starting with his own in rustic Ireland. Short-haul air transport as a coach or bus owes nothing to Freddie.

Transatlantic no-frills began in 1957-ish as NY, over Iceland, to Luxemburg, then coach to UK. From 1960-ish US supplementals and UK independents, inc. Freddie’s Air Charter, exploited Advanced Booking Charters, admitted by the IATA cartel for closed groups, by back-dating Membership. IATA’s response was to permit a cattle-class fare to be offered by their Members, national “designated instruments”: that included sandwich police to verify that the subsistence food did conform to its rules. Freddie’s £99 one way UK-NY, authorised by Carter 6/77, was the first Transatlantic peanut open to all, first come, first served. He believed the forgotten man would show-and-go, even waiting in line in a sleeping bag in a tent-terminal. His model was the Eastern Shuttle down US E.Coast.

He started with Mitsubishi-owned white-tail DC-10/10s on very favourable terms. By 1980 he had ordered new DC-10/30s and A300B4 with plans to do a Skytrain within Europe. The cartel struck back, such as by political pressure on their owner-Govts. to deny Route Authority. The THY DC-10/30 crash, £:$ going erratic were factors in his demise, but so was ambition in excess of his financial capacity. The Court Case fact was that McDonnell Douglas, BA, and certain DC-10/30 operators paid damages…after his demise. His creditors received most of it, but my memory is of £6Mn. to Sir Fred. personally, with which he tried to do it all again in the Caribbean, whither he had “retired”. US Govt. Laker/DC-10 Anti-Trust litigation against defendants including BA did delay its share flotation to 2/87; Maggie certainly wanted her nominee Chairman (to be) Lord King to get on with unloading BA from suckling on the public purse, and did want her friend Reagan to get on with clearing away that obstacle to setting a float price…but it is cart/horse confusion to infer that she pulled the rug from under Freddie.

Virgin’s entry to air transport drew upon Freddie’s example in the sense of taking on the “establishment” – a VS aircraft was named Spirit of Sir Freddie. “Peanut”, “Skytrain” are no part of VS’ model.

There is some very interesting material on pages 159/160 in this book about what we are discussing. Laker filed a civil action against BA and other airlines for forcing it in to bankruptcy by their colluding over pricing, theeby breaching US anti-trust laws.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan: A Very Political Special Relationship

No Thatcher did not have a role in coursing the collapse of Laker. .

Your opinion is noted :rolleyes:

No Thatcher did not have a role in coursing the collapse of Laker. The Indie article doesn’t say this, despite the misleading headline. BA along with a number of US airlines illegally got together to force out Laker. It was a US prosecution of BA that Thatcher put pressure on the Americans not to proceed with. As it was this prosecution that would have delayed the privatisation of BA, not the collapse of the Airline itself. The illegal actions of BA and the US airlines (price fixing to screw Laker) was admitted years later and a case, brought by Laker, was settled out of court. The Government of the day would have been stuck between a rock and a hard place if it had tried to prevent the collapse of Laker as it would have had to admit to the illegal activities of BA, of which at the time, there was little firm evidence, while at the same time trying to Privatise BA (which at the time was a massive tax loosing state run disaster).

David
(who won’t have a word said against Maggie, our greatest PM, second only to WSC).

“Stranded passengers – numbering 6,000 – will have the return half of their tickets honoured by British Airways, Pan American Airways, Air Florida and British Caledonian. ”

Am I correct in saying that only BA are still going?

Only BA remain as a name but BCal did produce an interesting gastric upset after being digested by the BA acquisition machine; they managed to break BA’s fascination with Boeing.

The last BCal-to-BA A320-111 was only retired in December 2007.

I departed the Air Force in jan 81 and joined Laker as a Lic eng. had the choice of Dan Air and Brittania at the same time but chose Laker as they offered the best career prospects. Bad, bad decision ! The engineering management was not the best, IMHO, you either liked or disliked the management ideals, I didn’t. Finally was made redundant with everyone else including said management! Seven months later joined Britannia and spent 24 very happy years until retirement.

Thanks Alan!! As an erstwhile Indy reader it all comes flooding back and I do now recall the whole saga, although I don’t recall the programme, not that there was much love lost between the BBC and the Thatcher government. I wonder if Sir Freddie ever went to print about it all.

May have been this one ?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/thatcher-had-role-in-laker-collapse-1428497.html

Who made the documentary..??;):)

Apparently so. This was stated in a TV documentary a few years ago.

The problems with the DC-10, and that Thatcher got the banks to pull the rug
from under him, so as to not hinder the privatisation of British Airways.

Really? Were those two things the really the chief causes of his demise? Did the PM really have that much sway over what were then entirely private enterprises?

Freddie Laker was the “Branson” of his day. I believe it was a combination of
factors which brought him down.
The problems with the DC-10, and that Thatcher got the banks to pull the rug
from under him, so as to not hinder the privatisation of British Airways.