MARCH 1987, and the female cabin crew at Scotland’s newest airline assemble on the tarmac at Glasgow Airport to model their uniforms.
The Chieftain Airways photocall was staged the week before it launched its direct scheduled services between Glasgow and the Continent via its two turbo-prop HS 748s.
The uniforms, the Evening Times said, had been the work of a leading designer, Chris Clyne. “Chieftain is Scotland’s newest airline and aim to boost the nation’s traditional tartan image,”the paper added. The uniforms were based on a specially produced green and purple check in the airline’s livery.
Alas, despite its best endeavours. Chieftain did not last too long.
A Glasgow Herald article, from February 1990, began with these words: “The runway leading to lift-off for an independent Scottish airline industry is littered with the corpses of past failures. Air Ecosse, Malinair, Highland Express, and Chieftain Airways are the more recent hulks discernible among the wreckage. ... Restricted at the outset, because of route licensing delays, to two destinations, Brussels and Frankfurt, Chieftain had (in [the owner’s]words) ‘the feet ca’ed from under us prematurely’ when a Bermuda-registered finance company called in the receivers after just six weeks of operation.”
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