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THE DREAM THAT WOULDN’T DIE
for Renfrew. The plan was that Glasgow would be used for short and medium-haul flights and Prestwick would keep its transatlantic status. Prestwick was seen as a rival to Heathrow in those early, heady days as a natural gateway to Europe. There were few weather constraints, since it was virtually fogfree all year, as McIntyre had predicted. It had two major runways, one of which was among the longest in the country, thanks again to the foresight of McIntyre. There were no environmental or noise problems and no stacking or slot problems. It was capable of being a global gateway for wide-body flights from anywhere in the world and there was plenty of space for airport-related and commercial development. No other airport in Britain boasted such facilities. The 1970s were particularly successful for Prestwick which, by this time, was handling 500,000 passengers a year and employing around 1,500 people. The first Boeing 747 jumbo arrived in 1970 and in June 1971 the spectators’ gallery was packed as Concorde gave her first low-level flying display in Scotland. In the summer of 1972 Prestwick was scheduled by BOAC to become the third busiest airport after Heathrow and JFK in New York, in their global network of 77 cities. BOAC and BEA merged to become British Airways in 1973 and the summer of that year saw 105,000 passengers using British Airways out of Prestwick. Concorde landed at Prestwick for the first time and continued to make many visits throughout the years. British Caledonian’s first scheduled transatlantic service went into operation the same year. The first blip in the success story came in 1974 when a jump in world oil prices saw a reduction in passengers, leading PanAm to withdraw their flights. Weathering the setback, the airport continued to thrive and, in 1977 when Scottish Aviation’s aircraft factory was nationalised and became part of British Aerospace, the Bermuda 2 agreement saw Prestwick designated as the official gateway between the USA and Scotland. A further boost came with the news that Northwest Airlines were introducing a daily scheduled service – Seattle-Minneapolis-Boston-Prestwick-Copenhagen. In 1980 Laker Airways was granted a licence to operate direct scheduled lowfare services to Los Angeles and Miami, an expansion of Sir Freddie Laker’s hugelysuccessful Skytrain out of Gatwick. Flying Tigers, the world’s largest air cargo carrier, revealed plans to launch a weekly scheduled service to New York during 1981. Like the 1970s, the 1980s started off full of promise – but the optimism was shortlived. A review by BAA in 1978-79 had re-affirmed Prestwick’s place as Scotland’s transatlantic gateway – all Scottish flights to Canada and the USA would fly solely from Ayrshire, a status reinforced by a further review conducted by the House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. But the continuing expansion of Glasgow Airport was beginning to affect Prestwick’s growth. Gateway status was a fine concept, but it was not being backed up by connecting domestic or continental services. These all flew from Glasgow, and there was no link, no working partnership between the two airports. Passengers arriving at Prestwick could not fly on anywhere else. It was a dead end. Then in 1981, completely out of the blue, British Airways, Prestwick’s biggest