I found a forty year old paperback in my stuff. I think I quite reading it at the time. He is usually better than this.
At any rate, the protagonist is apparently demobbed RAF flying a civilian aircraft in the Berlin airlift.
I thought it was just RAF and USAF crews flying military aircraft. Were there civilian aircraft in the Berlin airlift?
Wikipedia to the rescue!
Yes, the RAF chartered civilian aircraft for the Airlift as well as using their own.
(I read Air Bridge years ago - certainly no more recently than 1981…)
Thanks, I missed that on Wikipedia.

No worries, I’ve completely forgotten what happens in Air Bridge so we’re pretty much even. 
The protagonist just tossed his friend out of an airplane he was stealing.
I’ve kinda lost sympathy for him. Maybe I’ll bookmark it for another forty years. 