Capital Airlines, the self-styled "Yorkshire International Airline", existed between 1987 and 1992. It was the first airline to be based at Leeds Bradford Airport.
The airline came into being in 1984 as Brown Air, a subsidiary of the Brown Group which specialised in the sales and maintenance of heavy plant equipment. It flew a Cessna 441 Conquest (G-MOXY) on services from Leeds Bradford to Oslo, originally flown as a corporate shuttle but then opened up for public bookings. An afternoon service from Leeds Bradford to Frankfurt was later introduced. The Conquest was then replaced with a Grumman Gulfstream 1 turboprop, registration G-BRWN.
G-OLBA by Ian Gratton
Scheduled services to Glasgow were introduced with a Short 330 aircraft after the previous operator, Metropolitan Airways, had ceased trading. The SH330 was later returned to its leasing company and the scheduled routes to Oslo and Frankfurt were discontinued. The sole Gulfstream 1 was then operated on a regular Leeds-Glasgow-Leeds-Cardiff service, introducing the first direct services from Leeds to Cardiff and a through-flight from Glasgow to Cardiff. The Gulfstream 1 proved a popular aircraft and operated 50 sectors a week for a full year with a 100% dispatch record. The aircraft soon became too small to service demand and it was then the airline re-branded as Capital Airlines and took delivery of its first Short 360-300 G-BNDM, which was the first airline to operate the Short 360 configured with 39 seats.
Its route network was expanded progressively to include routes from Leeds Bradford to Belfast City and Dublin, a new Leeds-Edinburgh-Leeds-Southampton operation and services from Leeds Bradford to the Channel Islands, London Gatwick and Brussels. Services between London Luton and Belfast City were also introduced at that time. In 1988 the airline was one of the first to adopt a low cost pricing model with seats priced at £13/£26/£39 between LTN & BHD, undercutting BA cheapest price of £45 between London & Belfast.
The fleet of Short 360 aircraft were expanded as routes were commenced. An extensive range of charter flights from the Channel Islands were offered, together with scheduled services from Cardiff to Jersey and Guernsey as well as Royal Mail flights from Belfast Aldergrove to East Midlands. A short-lived attempt to operate Dublin-Belfast City scheduled services also took place towards the end of Capital's existence.
Capital took over the long-established maintenance and light aircraft operations of Northair at Leeds Bradford, providing access to hangar facilities, office space and the establishment of its own reservations centre and catering service at the airport.
The airline abruptly ceased operations in June 1990 as a result of Brown Group International, its parent company, declaring itself bankrupt due to their bankers in Norway withdrawing their financing of the group activities and the calling of the groups borrowing "cross guarantees" by the bank to repay the outstanding loans.
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