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The company BKS Aero Charter was registered on February 7, 1952, based at Southend. Adhoc charter work was operated throughout 1952 which was followed by ski charters to Innsbruck in the Winter of 1952/1953 as a contract service for a winter club made up of ski and outdoor sports enthusiasts. BKS commenced scheduled domestic UK operations in May of 1953, and this same month IT charters were commenced from Newcastle to Southend using Douglas DC-3s. At the end of 1953, the airline’s name was changed to BKS Air Transport and by 1965, the fleet stood at five DC-3s and three Vickers Viking.

Vacation charters from Southend continued through the 1959 summer season, and from that point forward BKS Air Transport re-focued their operational efforts on building Newcastle as their main base with much reduced efforts at Southend. AS.57 Ambassadors were added to the BKS fleet and were used on charter routes supplemented by Vickers Viscounts in 1961, and Hawker Siddeley HS748s from April, 1962, and Bristol Britannias commencing in April, 1964.

In June, 1961, London Gatwick was added as a departure city for IT charter flights by BKS, as was Teeside in the summer of 1965.The Ambassadors were withdrawn from service in October, 1967 (following a serious accident a London Heathrow) and the Bristol Britannias were withdrawn from the BKS fleet in February, 1969. BKS acquired a batch of second hand Vickers Viscounts from BEA in 1968 to bolster the UK and European charter operations, De Havilland Trident jetliners were added to the fleet on April 9, 1969 for use on the Newcastle to Palma route. By 1970, the BKS fleet was made up of Tridents and Viscounts.

BKS has become part of British Air Services in 1967, and changed its name to Northeast Airlines on November 1, 1970, and interestingly adopted a yellow colour scheme similar to the US based Northeast Airlines even though there was no connection between the two airlines. In March, 1976, the merger into British Airways Regional Division had been completed, and the Northeast name vanished into the history books. This fascinating story is told in this program by one of the airline’s early founders. (With special thanks to Scoval Publishing and their book “Leisure Airlines of Europe” by Klaus Vomhof for the information on this airline’s history as presented above.)

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