Hunting-Clan Air Transport

Hunting Air Travel

Hunting Air Travel Ltd. was established at Luton Airport in December 1945 by three members of the Hunting family: Charles, Wing Commander Gerald (former Royal Flying Corps pilot during World War I^[1][2]) and Captain Percy Hunting, all of them with family roots in the international shipping business. They were also directors of Percival Aircraft Ltd. The airline was a subsidiary of the Hunting Group of companies, which had come from the shipping industry and could trace its history back to the 19th century. In addition to an airline operation and a maintenance organisation, the Hunting Group's other aviation interests included Percival Aircraft Ltd, Hunting Aerosurveys Ltd and Aerofilms Ltd.^[3]

The first Hunting Air Travel operating base was at Bovingdon Airport in Southeast England. Its initial activities were contract, scheduled and non-scheduled domestic and international air services with a small fleet of four Proctor aircraft, obtained through its associate, Percival Aircraft. The air company commenced operations on 1 January, 1946, making the UK’s first post-WWI air-taxi flight. The Proctors gave way to a fleet of de Havilland DH 89 Dragon Rapides and Avro 652As (Avro Nineteen), allowing regular charter flights to continental Europe. In February 1947, the company’s main base was moved to Gatwick airport, with subsidiary operations at Croydon and Nottingham. This move coincided with the delivery of Hunting’s first two modern aircraft, a Vickers Viking and a DH.104 de Havilland Dove, permitting major expansions of its charters such as regular summer trips to the Channel Islands on various travel agents behalf. The Vikings carried out numerous passenger and freight charters, some of which took the aircraft as far afield as Nairobi and Johannesburg.

On 1 November 1948, Hunting commenced a regular weekly service between London and Dar-es-Salaam (Tanganyika) on behalf of the Overseas Food Corporation. Other lucrative business derived from a series of charters to the Middle East, carrying personnel and equipment on behalf of various oil companies. In 1949 a series of regular pilgrim flights between Dublin and Rome were offered at 50% of the normal scheduled fare. Hunting’s first truly scheduled operation resulted from a BEA Associate Agreement for passenger services between London and Strasbourg, flown continuously between July and September 1950. With eight Vikings and a single Douglas Dakota on strength, to better reflect the widening scope of its activities the company’s name was changed to Hunting Air Transport Ltd. in August 1951. By that time, the airline had emerged as one of the healthiest and most securely financed independent airlines in U.K.

Hunting Air Transport

On June 14, 1952, a Viking departed on the inaugural flight of what was to become the famous low-cost Safari service to Nairobi (Kenya).^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]} The Safari/Colonial Coach Service from London to Nairobi routed via Malta, Wadi Halfa, Khartoum, Juba and Entebbe.^[3][10] It utilised single-class 27-seat Vikings, which took three days^{[nb 2]} to complete the journey. Flown in conjunction with Airwork, soon achieved 90%+ load factors, such that a second weekly service was added from February 1953. The popularity of this venture prompted Hunting to open a second Colonial Coach Service between London and Salisbury (Rhodesia) from June 1953, and in association with Airwork and Central African Airways.^[3] Meanwhile, a month earlier, on May 15, a DC 3 had opened Hunting’s first internal scheduled service between Newcastle and London-Bovingdon. Other routes were also awarded to Amsterdam and Düsseldorf, begun late in 1953, while Oslo, Stockholm, Hamburg and Copenhagen, came during April 1954.

Two powerful groups join

A major organisational change came about in October 1953, with the purchase of an interest by the powerful Clan Line shipping company. It was the result of an agreement between the Hunting Group and the Clan Line^[11] group of companies to invest £500,000 each in a new company named Hunting-Clan Air Holdings Ltd., the holding company for the combined group's air transport businesses. The airline now became part of a holding company that embodied all Hunting’s diverse interests and was accordingly renamed, Hunting-Clan Air Transport Ltd. Apart from the air carrier itself, this included Field Aircraft Services Ltd, the Hunting group's aircraft maintenance arm.^[12]

Throughout 1954, internal scheduled services were consolidated, with Glasgow and Manchester being added as feeder services to the London route via Newcastle, alongside which a Glasgow-Newcastle-Paris route was also opened. Most of these services were flown by DC 3s, which now numbered seven in the fleet.

Further increasing its presence in Africa, a third coach-class route, operated on a monthly basis, was opened in May 1954, calling at Tangiers and Dakar, and down the west coast to Bathurst (Banjul), Freetown and Accra.^[13] Similarly, this network was further extended by another monthly service to Gibraltar via Biarritz from February 1955.^[14] Hunting-Clan's operations now included all-economy Safari/Colonial Coach class^{[nb 3]} services to East, Central, Southern and West Africa, general passenger and cargo charter and inclusive tour (IT) flights. Regular live- and bloodstock flights were another Hunting-Clan speciality.^[15] The airline also gained scheduled licences to operate a Northern network centred on Newcastle upon Tyne, linking Newcastle with Bovingdon, Manchester and Glasgow in the UK, as well as with Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo in Europe; all routes were to be served with Dakotas at a frequency of two flights per week, except Newcastle-Bovingdon which was to be served twice daily (with services to Glasgow and Manchester eventually flown daily during the peak summer season).

In October 1954, the London hub, hitherto Northolt, was changed to Heathrow^[2], while Bovingdon was retained as an engineering base.^[12][16] With apparent foresight, Hunting Clan had ordered Vickers Viscount turboprop aircraft in May 1953 and, in an attempt to boost passenger numbers. In mid-1955, Hunting-Clan became the first British independent airline to operate these state-of-the-art aircraft, when it took delivery of three brand-new series 730. These replaced Vikings on Safari/Colonial Coach and trooping flights to Africa, as well as on some of the airline's passenger charter and IT flights.^[12] The first of these was introduced to scheduled service on Scandinavian routes from June 1955. This attempt was largely unsuccessful and the turboprops were leased out. Problems with the Newcastle-based scheduled network were apparently solved in November, by handing it over entirely to Dragon Airways. To consolidate this move, in the same month Dragon Airways became (until 1957) a wholly owned subsidiary.

More important developments in Africa

For some time Hunting-Clan had set its sights on opening an all-cargo service to Africa and had amassed a small fleet of Avro 685 Yorks for conversion with the eventual granting of complex en-route traffic rights. By mid-1955 all was ready to begin operations. A Salisbury (Rhodesia)-based subsidiary, Hunting-Clan African Airways Ltd. was created, together with two "paper" companies, Clanair and Northern Air Transport, used primarily for aircraft registration purposes. Thus prepared, Africargo was launched on 23 July, with an Avro York originating at Manchester and flying via London-Heathrow to East Africa.^{[nb 4][17]} To offset the denial of onward traffic rights to Johannesburg, a connecting route was instead opened between Salisbury and Nairobi via Lusaka, N’dola and Blantyre. Hunting-Clan did eventually operate through to Johannesburg in 1958, though with a tourist passenger service from Salisbury, flown with DC 3s. By 1957 cargo traffic in Africa had more than trebled in capacity available. However, the Yorks were becoming increasingly unsuitable to sustain this operation, because of the low speed, poor service ceiling and inability to circumnavigate the often violent and changeable weather over the African continent. So, in August 1958, Hunting-Clan took delivery of two pressurised Douglas DC-6 freighters and these completely replaced the ageing Yorks early in 1959.

Hunting-Clan placed the Viscounts on the Colonial Coach services and such was their popularity that two of the larger 800-series aircraft were ordered for delivery in mid-1959. By this time an increasing feature of the airline’s business was the developing inclusive-tour market and from May 1959, such services were flown from Manchester to Mediterranean resorts, using DC-6s when not required for cargo operations. These flights were taken over by the new Viscounts from July and occasionally augmented with Vikings, which were otherwise mainly employed on ad-hoc charters before their eventual disposal by early 1960.

More maneuvers at the top

In 1956, two shipping lines - Clan Line and the Union-Castle Line - joined with the King Line and Bullard King & Co. to form British & Commonwealth Shipping. Hunting-Clan, which already had two Bristol B-175 Britannias on order, won a trooping contract against competition from Air Charter and Airwork.^[18]

By 1957, Hunting-Clan and Airwork converted their successful East, West and Southern African Safari/Colonial Coach flights into regular "third-class" scheduled services. However, the Government forced the independents to maintain additional stops that were no longer needed, as a result of replacing Vikings with more advanced Douglas DC-6s and Vickers Viscounts. When Britain's African colonies became independent, Safari/Colonial Coach was converted into a fully fledged scheduled service. To secure their traffic rights between the UK and the newly independent African nations, Hunting-Clan and Airwork began participating in revenue-sharing agreements with BOAC and the destination countries' flag carriers.^{[nb 5][19][20]} 1957 was also the year Hunting-Clan discontinued its Northern network, resulting in the closure of the base at Newcastle Airport. This move resulted in concentrating all of Hunting's UK-based activities at London Airport (Heathrow).^[21]

Big independents merger

Towards the end of 1958, two Bristol B-175 Britannias had also been delivered. They wore the livery of British & Commonwealth Shipping, the group new name after Clan Line had merged with the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company in January 1956. It had been envisaged that the Britannias would be used on a new passenger service into central Africa, but this idea was later dropped and instead they found better use on new long-haul trooping contracts to overseas destinations. Hunting-Clan reported substantial losses in 1958. The airline was also facing unexpected problems meeting the War Office's contractual requirements. At that time, trooping accounted for the biggest share of Hunting's overall business. In 1958-1958 three Viscount series 800 were delivered and almost immediately employed in Safari service, but their career with Hunting was short.

The company's poor financial performance accelerated the initiation of exploratory talks with the Airwork group about a potential alliance, including a full-scale merger of their air transport businesses. Moreover there were increasing signs that the government of the day was becoming more sympathetic to the independents’ calls for relaxation of the state monopoly over scheduled services. By March 1960, Hunting-Clan's and Airwork's shareholders had finalised the merger terms. This was followed by a public announcement of their airline subsidiaries' intention to amalgamate all commercial activities from June 1960, British United Airways, which became a reality on July 1, 1960.^[1][22]

The Hunting Group maintained its other aviation-related activities for another 40 years or so, through Hunting Aircraft and Engineering, Field’s and latterly, Hunting Cargo.