Editing Court Line (section)

====Hard times====
[[File:Court Line Lockheed TriStar Manteufel.jpg|thumb|right|Court Line [[Lockheed L-1011 TriStar#L-1011-1|Lockheed TriStar]] 
 ''Halcyon&nbsp;Breeze'', June 1973]]
As early as 1971, Clarksons lost as much as £2.6 million despite increasing its turnover by £9 million to £31 million. Industry sources estimated that this equated to a loss of £4 per head.<ref>''Fly me, I'm Freddie!'', Eglin, R. and Ritchie, B., Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1980, p. 183</ref>

In 1972, Clarksons's loss grew to £4.8 million. This was almost 2½ times as much as the combined loss of [[Thomson Holidays]] (£1.6 million) and [[Horizon Travel|Horizon Holidays]] (£388,000), its closest rivals.<ref>''Fly me, I'm Freddie!'', Eglin, R. and Ritchie, B., Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1980, p. 182</ref>

By 1973, Clarksons carried over a million passengers and accounted for 40% of Court Line's turnover.<ref name="Aircraft_38"/>

During the 1973–74 winter season, Clarksons's plight worsened. At the time, the UK was in the grip of a [[1973–75 recession|recession]], as a result of the early 1970s [[1973 oil crisis|energy crisis]] caused by the [[Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries]]' oil boycott of the West in the aftermath of the 1973 [[Yom Kippur War|Arab–Israeli War]]. This was a punitive measure directed against these countries for their support of [[Israel]] during that war. It led to a drastic reduction in the availability of petroleum products – including [[jet fuel]]. This in turn resulted in a tripling of the oil price in October 1973 and a subsequent quadrupling.<ref>''Fly me, I'm Freddie!'', Eglin, R. and Ritchie, B., Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1980, pp. 183, 185</ref>

1974 became known as the worst year for the UK package tour industry. At the beginning of the year, [[United Kingdom|Britain]] plunged into the [[Three-Day Week|three-day working week]], as a consequence of the miners' strike that had been called to topple the [[Edward Heath#Prime Minister|Heath Government]]. This immediately reduced package holiday bookings by 30%. Clarksons, Court Line's main customer and in-house tour operator since April 1973, was facing mounting financial pressure, and [[Vladimir Raitz]]'s Horizon Holidays, another of the airline's major customers, collapsed during that time. Following Court Line's takeover of Clarksons the previous year for a nominal £1 (excluding a £3.4 million "subsidy" from the airline's [[holding company#Parent company|parent company]] to cover the tour operator's projected 1973 loss), it purchased the [[Horizon Travel|Horizon]] group's [[goodwill (accounting)|goodwill]] for £600,000—including the acquisition of 58% of Horizon Midlands for £400,000—from the [[Business administration|administrator]]. The deal, which became effective in February 1974, was based on payment of £1 for each Horizon customer Court Line expected to carry over the following three years. The airline's decision to purchase Clarksons as well as Horizon was intended to protect its business. In reality, these deals did little to help improve Court Line's increasingly bleak prospects.

As soon as Court Line began diverting Horizon customers onto its planes, [[British Caledonian in the 1970s#1974 crisis year|British Caledonian]] (BCal) threatened having Horizon compulsorily wound up if Court Line did not agree to settle Horizon's outstanding debts of over £100,000. BCal's threat forced Court Line to sub-charter a fully crewed BCal One-Eleven jet for Horizon's flying programme and to provide it with additional business. In addition to BCal forcing Court Line to compensate it for the loss of Horizon's business, Thomas Cook's money-back guarantee – a scheme widely copied by other rival tour operators – further reduced the number of Horizon holidaymakers travelling on Court Line's jets. As a result, Court Line carried far fewer Horizon customers than it had anticipated.<ref name="Bubble"/><ref name="Clarksons_History"/><ref name="Clarksons_plight_185_6"/><ref name="Clarksons_takeover">{{Cite web |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201132.html |title=''Clarksons bought by Court Line'', Air Transport, Flight International, 3 May 1973, p. 664 |access-date=18 January 2010 |archive-date=19 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019071717/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201132.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1974/1974%20-%200178.html |title=''Court Line bids for Horizon'', World News, Flight International, 7 February 1974, p. 158 |access-date=18 January 2010 |archive-date=23 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023205732/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1974/1974%20-%200178.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>''High Risk: The Politics of the Air'', Thomson, A., Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1990, pp. 294/5</ref><ref>''Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... COURT LINE)'', Vol 43, No 7, pp. 38/9, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, July 2010</ref> Clarksons's financial position further deteriorated. In a desperate attempt to fill the group's planes and hotel rooms so that it could stay afloat, Clarksons continued selling holiday packages below cost, with a fortnight all-inclusive holiday to Majorca selling for as little as £50.<ref name="end_of_the_line"/><ref name="Bubble"/><ref name="Clarksons_takeover"/><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1974/1974%20-%201594.html |title=''World's charter airlines'', Flight International, 10 October 1974, p. 460 |access-date=2 May 2009 |archive-date=24 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121024044500/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1974/1974%20-%201594.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Collapse"/>