THE future of Caledonian Airways hangs in the balance this month following the merger of its parent, Carlson Leisure Group, with Thomas Cook and speculation that the latter will drop the long-established brand.
Thomas Cook is unlikely to continue operating two airline brands and it has already announced that the Flying Colours Airlines’ business plan will be adopted for the integration of the two carriers.
This will mean that Caledonian’s flying programme will be dictated by the needs of the tour operation, rather than the other way round, as was the case with Caledonian and Inspirations.
Thomas Cook UK tour operations managing director Simon Vincent said: “In essence this means that the airlines operate as the transportation division of the tour operator, allowing us to focus closely on maximising in-house flying and aircraft utilisation and optimising our third-party flying commitments.”
Responsibility for the commercial function of the two airlines has gone to Glenn Chipp, formerly acting managing director of Inspirations, who has been made aviation director of UK tour operations with a seat on both the tour operator board and the airline board.
Control of the two airlines has been given to Terry Soult, the managing director of Flying Colours Airlines who has been made managing director Thomas Cook UK airline operations.
Caledonian directors now report to Soult, and Flying Colours’ Manchester base has become the headquarters for Thomas Cook’s UK airline operation.”
A company spokesman said: “The decision (to adopt the Flying Colours model) was heavily influenced by Flying Colours’ record as the best performing UK leisure carrier in its first years of operation.
Soult said he was in the process of selecting a senior management team to develop a strategy for the full integration of both airlines for summer 2000.
In the meantime, both airlines will continue to operate under their own brands to their existing plans and procedures, and the directors of both organisations will maintain responsibility for their respective departments throughout this summer.
“Our first priority is the successful delivery of the flying programmes of both airlines and therefore our approach to integration must be consistent with achieving that objective,” added Soult.
He said Thomas Cook had not yet decided whether to stick with the Caledonian or the Flying Colours brand, or to develop a new brand for its in-house airline.
“The branding issue is simply not a major priority just now,” he added.
“The option remains to go forwardwith either one or two identities but a major research piece still has to be completed before we can begin to address the subject.”
Inspirations’ seat-only brand Flights By Inspirations has already been dumped and its 300,000 capacity programme has been absorbed by Flying Colours Airfares, making this the largest flight-only brand in the UK.
The combined programme amounts to 580,000-600,000 seats – about 80,000 more than Avro which was previously the UK’s biggest seat-only operator.
Flying Colours aviation director Anette Raynor – who will shortly be leaving the company – said Flying Colours had no plans to reduce its seat-only capacity for summer ’99 following the merger with FBI.
She added: “Our combined capacity will be within 20,000 seats of what it was last year, so the effect on the market will be minimal.”
She said the company had not yet decided on the size of its programme for summer 2000.
The future of Carlson’s second seat-only brand Golden Lion, which sells Caledonian’s flights to the Caribbean, and its long-established seat-broker Gold Crest, have not yet been decided.
Gold Crest managing director Phil Wyatt has left the company following the decision by Thomas Cook to place the commercial function for aviation within UK tour operations.