page_title: Channel Airways
section_title: The 1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Channel Airways / History / The 1960s
caption_attribution_description: English: Vickers Viking C.2 G-APOP of Channel Airways at Manchester (Ringway) Airport in 1964
context_page_description: Channel Airways was a private airline formed in the United Kingdom in 1946 as East Anglian Flying Services.
  The newly formed airline initially operated aerial joy rides with a single, three-seater aircraft from an airstrip on the Kent coast. Scheduled services began in 1947, following the move to Southend Airport earlier that year, while inclusive tour charter flights started in 1948. Rapid business growth saw seven additional aircraft join the fledgling airline's fleet by the end of that year.
  The introduction of exchange controls in the early 1950s resulted in a major contraction of the travel market, in turn compelling East Anglian to cease all operations other than pleasure flying. Following a recovery in demand, aircraft and employees that had been surplus to requirements during the slump were respectively brought back into service and re-hired. By that time, the airline had also opened a second base at Ipswich Airport and obtained its first long-term scheduled service licence. That decade also saw East Anglian updating its fleet with post-war aircraft designs.
  Fleet modernisation continued in the early 1960s with the addition of DC-3 and DC-4 equipment.
context_section_description: 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.
  On 29 October 1962, East Anglian Flying Services officially changed its name to Channel Airways. (Although the Channel Airways name had first appeared on the company's aircraft as long ago as 1952, the old name was retained as the officially registered name 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 equipped with Vickers Vikings became a wholly owned subsidiary of Channel Airways 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
caption: Channel Airways Vickers Viking refuelling at Manchester Airport in July 1964 – the last year of operation of the type
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