In March 1983 Trevor Jones established Birmingham Executive Airways (BEA) as an airline for business travelers. The first flight was on 6 June that year from Birmingham to Aberdeen on behalf of British Airways. Two days later, scheduled services from Birmingham to Copenhagen, Zurich and Geneva were started. Initially, BEA operated three 12-seat BAe Jetstream 31 aircraft and for increasing the capacity, one Saab 340 was added to the fleet in February 1985. Due to reliability problems this was retired within one year and the order for a second Saab was cancelled. In September 1985 BEA flew trial flights with a Fokker Friendship leased from Air UK, but the F27 had more capacity than needed. In 1986 BEA leased a Grumman Gulfstream I, awaiting four own Gulfstreams, which were configured for 24 passengers. BEA was the first commercial operator of this aircraft type in the UK. With the new equipment the route network could substantially grow: Amsterdam, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Genova, Milan, Oslo and Stuttgart were new destinations. In 1987 the name was changed into Birmingham European Airways for reflecting the broadened scope of the airline.

The Plimsoll Line, a holding company that owned Brymon Airways, took an interest in BEA in 1989. Danish Maersk Line Shipping Group had a significant stake in The Plimsoll Line and in this way BEA came in contact with Maersk Air, the aviation daughter of the Maersk shipping company. Thanks to the new capital BEA could make itself ready for entering the jet age and as a transition BEA leased two Fokker 50s from Maersk Air. In January 1990 the first of five BAC 1-11 400 series was added to the fleet.

In October 1992 BEA merged with Brymon Airways to form Brymon European Airways. This fusion airline existed for only one year: in 1993 British Airways acquired the original Brymon part and the BEA part became Maersk Air UK Ltd and operated as a British Airways franchise partner. In 2003 Maersk Air UK ended the franchise and continued as Duo Airways, which existed no longer than one year before it went bankrupt.

Birmingham European Airways Fokker fleet

In total BEA has operated three Fokker airliners, one F27 Friendship and two F50s. All were leased from other airlines for relatively short periods.

Birmingham European Airways pictures

OY-MMU (20153) in Maersk blue with Birmingham European titles (Lewis Grant; Birmingham, 2 June 1989)

OY-MMV (20154) in the same livery (Michel St.Félix; Paris-Charles de Gaulle, October 1989)

Credits

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_European_Airways (accessed 3 October 2024)
• Berlin Spotter: https://www.berlin-spotter.de/airlines/duo.htm (Accessed 2 October 2024)
• F. Homma and H.K. Groen. The Fokker F27 Friendship story. CD-ROM, April 2011.
• A.B. Eastwood and J. Roche. Turbo Prop Airliner Production List. The Aviation Hobby Shop, July 2007.