Five Fokkers
By Chris Smith
Introduction
Some of you will be familiar with this story, it's something I've been pursuing ever since it happened with little success, but during the boredom of lockdown I've had a breakthrough of sorts in that I've linked it with a second memory involving a TriStar...and I believe I've traced the TriStar!
During the early 2000s, I was going on a typical family holiday to Spain from Teesside and I remember being on an all white LTE Airbus A321. Whilst waiting in the departure lounge a total of five British Midland Fokker 100s arrived in quick succession. To emphasise the significance to me, this airline and aircraft combination is my all time favourite and a large influence on me taking up the hobby in the first place. As such I've been trying to find out why the entire fleet bar one would be at Teesside at the same time ever since.
The second memory was an arrival into Teesside, again from a Mediterranean holiday, with an Air Luxor TriStar landing either immediately before or after us (we were on stand 4 or 5 - it went onto 1 or 2). I'm leaning more towards it having landed first, given we had to merge in with its passengers - all Army personnel.
CSI MME
As part of this websites recent history project, I've been reading all of the Teesside Air Letters uploaded to this website a few years ago, and in summer 2003 I noticed a series of MOD charter flights operated by Air Luxor TriStars during the same season that LTE made their debut on Palma flights. So, I began collating all of the relevant information as follows:
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From late July through early September 2003 a series of weekly charter flights by the MOD took place, outbound to Basrah and returning from Kuwait. These flights were shared by Titan Airways 757s and Air Luxor L-1011 TriStars, with the latter movements taking place exclusively during the August.
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The LTE A321 Palma flights ran for only two seasons - summer 2003 and 2004, the airline doesn't appear to have operated any other charter routes from here.
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My family has only flown LTE once.
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Still being at school, our family holidays would always take place between mid-July and the end of August and were always closer to the finish rather than the start, i.e. August.
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British Midland were using Airbus equipment on our Heathrow route by Summer 2004.
Details of all of the LTE and Air Luxor flights. LTE900/1 was timetabled at 1550 / 1650, whilst the LXR5051/552P appears to have been 1600 / 1800.
| REG | DATE | ARR | DEP | C/S | NOTES |
| EC-ILG | 11/04/03 | 1607 | 1718 | Tail colours only | |
| N/A | 18/04/03 | N/A | N/A | N/A | No flight scheduled |
| EC-ILG | 25/04/03 | 1617 | 1746 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 02/05/03 | 1553 | 1704 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 09/05/03 | 1600 | 1712 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 16/05/03 | 1553 | 1707 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 23/05/03 | 1605 | 1719 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 30/05/03 | 1600 | 1719 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 06/06/03 | 1554 | 1702 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 13/06/03 | 1554 | 1701 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 20/06/03 | 1617 | 1733 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 27/06/03 | 1611 | 1713 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 04/07/03 | 1558 | 1712 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 11/07/03 | 1603 | 1702 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 18/07/03 | 1617 | 1724 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 25/07/03 | 1610 | 1728 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 01/08/03 | 1550 | 1701 | Tail colours only | |
| CS-TMP | 08/08/03 | 1530 | 1813 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 08/08/03 | 1554 | 1719 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 15/08/03 | 1611 | 1728 | Tail colours only | |
| EC-ILG | 22/08/03 | 1601 | 1716 | Unknown | |
| CS-TMR | 22/08/03 | 1648 | 1821 | Full colours | |
| CS-TMR | 29/08/03 | 1624 | 1800 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 29/08/03 | 1629 | 1806 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 05/09/03 | 1630 | 1814 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 12/09/03 | 1612 | 1724 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 19/09/03 | 1610 | 1731 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 26/09/03 | 1607 | 1714 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 03/10/03 | 1650 | 1807 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 10/10/03 | 1605 | 1721 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 17/10/03 | 1615 | 1732 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 24/10/03 | 1559 | 1720 | Full colours | |
| EC-HQV | 31/10/03 | 1546 | 1644 | LTE old colours | 757 sub |
| EC-ILG | 07/05/04 | 1557 | 1723 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 14/05/04 | 1615 | 1731 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 21/05/04 | 1630 | 1743 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 28/05/04 | 1615 | 1742 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 04/06/04 | 1617 | 1743 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 11/06/04 | 1618 | 1739 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 18/06/04 | 1601 | 1713 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 25/06/04 | 1612 | 1728 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 02/07/04 | 1602 | 1718 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 09/07/04 | 1559 | 1713 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 16/07/04 | 1546 | 1714 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 23/07/04 | 1650 | 1813 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 30/07/04 | 1613 | 1725 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 06/08/04 | 1602 | 1720 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 13/08/04 | 1615 | 1737 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 20/08/04 | 1613 | 1723 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 27/08/04 | 1556 | 1706 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 03/09/04 | 1620 | 1738 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 10/09/04 | 1604 | 1719 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 17/09/04 | 1600 | 1751 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 24/09/04 | 1618 | 1721 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 01/10/04 | 1606 | 1726 | Full colours | |
| EC-ISY | 08/10/04 | 1735 | 1857 | Privilege Style | 757 sub |
| EC-ILG | 15/10/04 | 1617 | 1746 | Full colours | |
| EC-IXY | 22/10/04 | 1606 | 1725 | Full colours | |
| EC-ILG | 29/10/04 | 1558 | 1715 | Full colours |
Details of British Midland Fokker 100 retirement, which ultimately proved unhelpful.
| REG | RETIRED | NOTES |
| G-BVJA | Apr 04 | |
| G-BVJB | Aug 04 | De-reg 30/08/04 |
| G-BVJC | Feb 05 | |
| G-BVJD | Mar 05 | |
| G-BXWE | Jul 05 | |
| G-BXWF | Apr 05 |
Further Information
Other Spanish holidays from Teesside during the same era involved Futura more than once and Iberworld at least once. We never used Air Europa, Airtours, or Spanair and I believe my MyTravel flights were from Newcastle and we used Thomson Airways several times but I believe these were mostly after the timeframe of this article and again mostly if not all from Newcastle or Leeds/Bradford. It's hard to imagine an all white A321 featuring in any of these.
Air Luxor appeared to operate three L-1011s, with CS-TMP switching to just a basic scheme by early 2004 and CS-TEB having never wore Air Luxor colours.
Second Guessing
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Was the all white A321 I flew on an LTE flight at all or was it a different summer holiday from Teesside, and even if the A321 was LTE, was that the same holiday during which the Five Fokker incident even happened?!
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I previously thought the A321 was all white, but I can see why I might have made this mistake if it was devoid of titles. EC-ILG operated all summer 2003 flights wearing just tail colours, until my suspected outbound flight which is the last time it was noted as such before receiving titles - I don't remember either way the livery of the return flight but perhaps I would have had it been in the same scheme?
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I thought I could remember seeing the TriStar taxing in, but given they disembarked first it's more logical it would already be on stand when we landed.
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Perhaps my family did use the LTE service more than once?!
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Did I imagine the whole bloody thing?! I'm starting to wonder!!!
Arguments For
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I sometimes wondered if some of the five F100s might actually have been Fokker 70s given British Midland only had six 100s in total...but research reveals British Midlands three smaller examples had been sold to KLM Cityhopper the year before the first LTE flights.
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Friday 29th August 2003 has LXR5051 landing at Teesside at 1624 followed just five minutes later by LTE900 at 1629 - this is the only time the two flights crossed over close enough to tie up perfectly with my version of events.
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There was no TriStar on the 15th, had there been I would have seen it on the way out as well, which adds weight to the above date.
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I believe the August 2003 TriStar visits to be the only Air Luxor examples to ever visit.
Arguments Against
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Having become quite familiar with the Teesside Air Letter, I know that the author should have passed comment if five F100s were on the ground at once, and even had he not they should have been listed in the various sections for me to pick out, yet for the month of August 2003 no diversions, crew training or ad-hoc charter flights involving British Midland F100s took place; we didn't have five Heathrow rotations in a day and even if we did they wouldn't be so close together even taking delays etc into account and there were no Jersey flights on Fridays and even then they were all ERJ-145s that summer.
Conclusions
Trusting first instincts and ignoring all second guessing; I have always linked the British Midland 'Five Fokker' incident with my outbound LTE flight, and given the aircraft would have been in full Volare Airlines colours for the second 2004 season, it is fair to assume the Five Fokkers and the Air Luxor TriStar sightings took place at either end of the same holiday.
Our holidays were always two weeks, so this gives me a date of Friday 15th August 2003 for the Five Fokkers.
I can safely claim CS-TMR as a cop, and EC-ILG as both a cop and two flights.
Alas sadly even with a likely date I'm not much closer to tracking down the Five Fokkers - or rather the reason for them - I will 200% have seen all British Midland Fokker 100s at one time or another so I can safely go ahead and log the lot!
Follow-up
Between writing this article and publishing it, I have approached Teesside ATC to enquire whether or not they keep records that far back, alas they don't. I've contacted the Leeds Bradford spotters given the British Midland F100s were based there towards the end, and I've contacted Air North who were very helpful but unfortunately couldn't provide any further detail. At this point, my only hope is someone familiar with the event reads this article and steps forward!
The best version of the British Midland
livery, on the best aircraft they operated!