abstract:British Caledonian (BCal) was a private, British independentindependent from government-owned corporations airline, operating out of Gatwick Airport in the 1970s and 1980s. It came into being in November 1970 when the Scottish charter airline Caledonian Airways, at the time Britain's second-largest, wholly privately owned, independent airline, took over British United Airways (BUA), then the largest British independent airline as well as the United Kingdom's leading independent scheduled carrier.