John Hughes BCAL Charter Sales Manager / Cargo Sales


Sadly John passed away on 23rd February after a long Illness. Our thoughts go out to John's family, friends and former colleagues. John was a founder member of Caledonian from 1961 back before they had their first DC-7C until the arrival of the B707-320s.  John was the Charter Sales Manager and then headed up the new Cargo Sales until just prior to delivery of the first B707.

John's son Nick recalls that his father enjoyed every moment with BCAL and was, like the rest of the team, enthusiastic and dedicated working from their first office over the estate agents in Horley.

John's service was held on 8th March 2016 at the Surrey & Sussex Crematorium.


John Remembered

From Tony Cocklin
He’ll be remembered as dynamic sales manager and an inspiration to so many aspiring young airline executives at Caledonian’s headquarters, Sussex House in Crawley, back in the formative years of modern British civil aviation during the 1960s.

John was particularly recalled by Sir Adam Thomson in his autobiography, ‘High Risk.’ Writing about winter seasons in the air charter business, Sir Adam wrote: “...the most interesting winter work centred on the annual pilgrimage undertaken by Moslems throughout the world to Mecca - the Haj....Our inroad to the Haj market was made initially by one of our commercially-minded pilots, Pat Holt, and consolidated by an energetic sales manager, John Hughes. Hughes spent weeks at a time travelling in the Middle East and Africa for negotiations with the airlines and the boards which controlled the conduct of the Haj.”  With this and many other initiatives, John played an important role in building the airline which eventually became British Caledonian.

From David Williams
As I started my airline life at Caledonian it was a pleasure to have worked with John, my condolences to his family RIP my friend.

From Dick Holder
When I first joined Caledonian I worked in Operations and subsequently moved into Route Planning after a year, during these days John and his team were always in contact with me. John was a great enthusiastic sales man, and the company owed so much to his teams efforts. It made life tough for us as they were a demanding bunch always wanting to stretch the boundaries. But we all worked together as a team, well, more like a big family really. We worked hard but always got great rewards in the success we shared. John was a lovely man who I for one are proud to have known. RIP John. My sincere condolences to his family.



If you would like to leave a message in remembrance please drop me a line anytime



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