[1] In 1929 Eric Gandar Dower bought a Blackburn Bluebird IV two-seat biplane in which he toured the country and entered air races.

[2] Gandar Dower had the idea of opening a flying school there and in 1933 he had started work levelling the land, installing an electricity supply and building a hangar.

There, airlines would be competing with the ferries which had to cross the often rough and stormy Pentland Firth, which has some of the strongest tides in the world, and the time saving by air would be revolutionary.

Gandar Dower already knew that Fresson was planning to extend his operations to Aberdeen, and had prevented him from using Dyce Airport, probably by quoting him excessive landing and passenger fees.

A route between Thurso and Stromness was established on 11 June 1935, with an on-demand stop at Berridale near St Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay and, later, at Longhope on the island of Hoy.

[7] On 2 February 1936 Eric Starling flew the airline's first air ambulance flight, in Dragon G-ADFI, from South Ronaldsay to Stromness for transfer by road to hospital in Kirkwall.

In May 1936 the Air Ministry opened a new radio station in Kirkwall, making navigation, weather reporting and general communication much easier, and encouraging both Gandar Dower and Fresson to expand to the Shetland Isles.

Aberdeen Airways subsequently flew the route via Thurso and Stromness or Quanterness (about 2.5 miles (4.0 kilometres) to the north-west of Kirkwall) using a Dragon.

They met again in 1934 when a Norwegian military flight called at Dyce, and Gandar Dower resolved to start an air service between Aberdeen and Norway.

[11] To this end, he decided on a less parochial name for his airline, and on 13 February 1937, changed its name to Allied Airways (Gandar Dower) Ltd. Gandar Dower, with Starling as pilot, made the first flight from Dyce to Sola Airport, Stavanger, Norway on 22 May 1937 in Rapide G-ADDE, taking 2 hours 55 minutes, and becoming the first aircraft to land at the new airport.

[11] During this period, on 23 November 1937, Allied Airways had inaugurated the first regular air mail service between Aberdeen and Sumburgh, with Eric Starling flying Dragon G-ACNJ on the first flight.

At Kirkwall, where Gandar Dower had closed his Quanterness airfield, Fresson's Wideford airfield was used for a while, but after Allied's Rapide G-ACZF crashed into a stone wall there in late 1941, they moved to RNAS Skeabrae, 7.5 miles (12.1 kilometres) north of Stromness, until 1942, when they moved to the new RAF Grimsetter, now Kirkwall Airport, which is a mile (1.6 kilometres) to the east of Wideford.

The Associated Airways Joint Committee (AAJC) was formed 27 June 1940, replacing the National Air Communications (NAC) which had played a similar role from the start of the war, administering UK civil aviation activities.

His airport was requisitioned by RAF Coastal Command, who expanded and developed it, laying hard runways, but his airfields at Thurso and Stromness were rendered unusable.

Gandar Dower said that the demands on the airline were huge, but official rewards were totally lacking, saying “No ranks, no gongs, no uniform, no recognition!”[15] Routes in early 1946.

[5] The early livery consisted of the upper half of the fuselage and engine nacelles yellow and the lower halves purple - the colours of Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club of which Gandar Dower had been a member.