Heathrow Airport, called London Airport until 1966 and also known as London Heathrow Airport, is the main international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system.
London Gatwick, also known as Gatwick Airport, is the secondary international airport serving London, England. It is located near Crawley, West Sussex, England 29.5 miles (47.5 km) south of Central London. In 2022, Gatwick was the second-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after Heathrow Airport, and was the 8th-busiest in Europe by total passenger traffic. It covers a total area of 674 hectares.
Stavanger Airport, commonly known simply as Sola, is an international airport located in Rogaland county, Norway. The airport is located 6 NM southwest of the centre of the city of Stavanger inside the neighboring municipality of Sola and serves the Stavanger, Sola, Sandnes area as well as serves as a regional hub for southwestern Norway. It is Norway's third-busiest airport, with both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter traffic for the offshore North Sea oil installations. In addition, the Royal Norwegian Air Force operates Westland Sea King search and rescue helicopters from Sola Air Station.
British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which existed from 1946 until 1974.
British Caledonian (BCal) was a private independent airline in the United Kingdom that operated from 1970 until it merged with British Airways in 1988. It operated primarily from London Gatwick Airport in south-east England. BCal was formed by the merger of Caledonian Airways and British United Airways (BUA). It was created as an alternative to the British government-controlled corporation airlines and was described as the "Second Force" in the 1969 Edwards report. The carrier slogan was Let's go British Caledonian in the 1970s and We never forget you have a choice in the 1980s. The BUA takeover enabled Caledonian to realise its long-held ambition to transform itself into a scheduled airline. The merged entity eventually became the UK's foremost independent, international scheduled airline.
Helijet International is a helicopter airline and charter service based in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Its scheduled passenger helicopter airline services operates flights from heliports at Vancouver International Airport (YVR), downtown Vancouver, downtown Nanaimo and downtown Victoria. It also operates a charter division serving the film, television, aerial tour, industrial and general helicopter and corporate jet charter markets, as well as helicopter and jet air ambulance services. Its head office and main hangar is Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
New York Airways was an American helicopter airline in the New York City area, founded in 1949 as a mail and cargo carrier. On 9 July 1953 it may have been the first scheduled helicopter airline to carry passengers in the United States, with headquarters at LaGuardia Airport. Although primarily a helicopter airline operator with scheduled passenger operations, New York Airways also flew fixed wing aircraft, such as the de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 19-passenger STOL twin turboprop aircraft.
On 16 July 1983 a British Airways Helicopters commercial Sikorsky S-61 helicopter, Oscar November (G-BEON), crashed in the southern Celtic Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean, while en route from Penzance to St Mary's, Isles of Scilly in poor visibility. Only six of the twenty-six people on board survived. It was Britain's worst helicopter civil aviation accident at the time.
Land's End Airport, situated near St Just in Penwith, 5 NM west of Penzance, in Cornwall, is the most south westerly airport of mainland Britain. The airport is owned by the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company (ISSC). ISSC's subsidiary Land's End Airport Limited operates the airport, and another subsidiary, Isles of Scilly Skybus, operates a regular passenger service to St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly as well as scenic flights around west Penwith.
British International Helicopter Services (BIH), owned by Bristow Group, is a British-owned helicopter operator. It operates a fleet of ten helicopters covering search and rescue, offshore, defence, charter and flying training activities from its bases at Newquay Airport, Coventry Airport and RAF Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands.
St Mary's Airport or Isles of Scilly Airport is an airport located 1 nautical mile east of Hugh Town on St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly, to the south west of Cornwall, UK. It is the only fixed-wing airport serving the Isles of Scilly, handling most air traffic to and from the Islands. The airport is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and currently is operated by the Council of the Isles of Scilly.
Penzance Heliport is located 1.1 NM northeast of Penzance, Cornwall. The heliport hosts scheduled flights to the Isles of Scilly, with a connection to the railway network at Penzance railway station by a special bus service.
British Caledonian (BCal) came into being in November 1970 when the Scottish charter airline Caledonian Airways, at the time Britain's second-largest, wholly privately owned, independent airline, took over British United Airways (BUA), then the largest British independent airline as well as the United Kingdom's leading independent scheduled carrier.
Bristow Helicopters Limited is a British civil helicopter operator originally based at Aberdeen Airport, Scotland, which is currently a part of the U.S.-based Bristow Group which in turn has its corporate headquarters in Houston, Texas, U.S. In 2020, Bristow Group was merged with Era Helicopters, a large U.S.-based commercial helicopter operator that was previously a division of Era Aviation, with the two companies then continuing to use the Bristow name.
The Sikorsky S-61L and S-61N are civil variants of the SH-3 Sea King military helicopter. They were developed and produced by the American helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft.
Airlink was the brand name of a helicopter shuttle service which ran between London's two main airports, Gatwick and Heathrow, between 1978 and 1986. Operated jointly by British Caledonian Airways and British Airways Helicopters using a Sikorsky S-61 owned by the British Airports Authority, the "curious and unique operation" connected the rapidly growing airports in the years before the M25 motorway existed. Although at one point the service was granted a licence to operate until 1994, the Secretary of State for Transport intervened and revoked the licence with effect from February 1986—by which time the continued existence of the link had become "a highly controversial issue" debated by Members of Parliament, airlines, airport operators, local authorities and many other interest groups. No similar service has operated between the airports since Airlink's cessation.
The Waterloo Air Terminal was a passenger reception, check-in facility and heliport on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. It was used by British European Airways (BEA) and other European airlines between 1953 and 1957, when it was replaced by the West London Air Terminal. Passengers checked in, were issued with a boarding card, and were transported to either London Airport or Northolt Airport using a fleet of coaches.
Gatwick Airport was in Surrey until 1974, when it became part of West Sussex as a result of a county boundary change. The original, pre-World War II airport was built on the site of a manor in the parish of Charlwood. The land was first used as an aerodrome in the 1920s, and in 1933 commercial flights there were approved by the Air Ministry.
The East Pakistan Helicopter Service refers to the scheduled helicopter services operated by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) in East Pakistan during the 1960s. It was one of the earliest air services of its kind in the world and one of the most extensive helicopter networks in history.
