NOVAIR
(United Kingdom)

Novair's roots reach back to December 23rd of 1982 when British Caledonian Charter was formally set up as a joint venture of British Caledonian Airways and the Rank organisation. When plans to fly charter services into New York side-by-side to BCALs scheduled flights, BCAL charter became a separate airline called Cal Air. The US authorities didn't allow BCAL to fly both, scheduled and charter flights and the company wanted to create different images for their 3-class-service and their charter flights. After Rank took over sole ownership, the airline was renamed Novair International Airways on December 7th 1988. A main reason for this new name was the acquisition of British Caledonian Airways by main competitor British Airways which took BCAL as a base to form a new charter subsidiary under the name of Caledonian Airways. This would have probably lead to confusions between Caledonian and Cal Air. The fleet consisted of two ex-Laker DC-10-10 and was joined by famous G-GCAL, the second prototype in 1986. Novair offered charter flights to the main Mediterranean holiday areas as well as to North America with the three DC-10s and a small fleet of 737s. However, the airline was always fighting against decreasing passenger numbers and finally ceased operations in March 31st 1990. It was finally closed on May 5th. The two younger DC-10s found a new home with FedEx while #2 became the Orbis flying eye hospital.

Photos:
Upper right: his was taken at Prestwick in June 1990 and shows, from left to right, G-BJZD (46970/269), G-BJZE (46973/272) & G-GCAL (46501/2) in open storage after Novair stopped operating on 31/03/1990. - BY KEN FIELDING


Following aircraft were operated by or for Novair:

RegistrationAircraftFleetnr./NameOperated from - toWhere is it now?
G-BJZD46970/ 27207.12.1988 - 31.03.1990FedEx
G-BJZE46973/ 26907.12.1988 - 31.03.1990FedEx
G-GCAL46501/ 207.12.1988 - 31.03.1990Project Orbis


Previous airline: Northwest Airlines Next airline: Omni Air International

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