British Caledonian

British Caledonian (BCal) was a British private independent airline which operated from London Gatwick Airport in south-east England during the 1970s and 1980s. 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. It was formed by the UK's second-largest, independent charter airline Caledonian Airways taking over British United Airways (BUA), then the largest British independent airline and the United Kingdom's leading independent scheduled carrier. 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.

A series of major financial setbacks during the mid-1980s combined with the airline's inability to grow sufficiently to reach a viable size put the airline at serious risk of collapse. British Caledonian began looking for a merger partner to improve its competitive position. In December 1987, British Airways (BA) bought the airline. The Caledonian name was used to rebrand BA's Gatwick-based subsidiary British Airtours as Caledonian Airways.