British Airways (BA), "
the world's favourite airline," has been the
United Kingdom's largest
airline since its creation from the
1974 merger of intercontinental carrier
BOAC and UK-Europe carrier
BEA. Its
lineage can be traced back to the first daily scheduled service in the world,
Aircraft Transport and Travel (
AT&T)'s flight between
London and
Paris in
1919. AT&T later became part of
Imperial Airways, which merged into BOAC.
Both BOAC and BEA were parastatals owned by the British government, and British Airways was also a parastatal during its first few years of life. The airline was slowly privatized between 1979 and 1987: once the government's hand had left the company, BA merged with British Caledonian, inexplicably renaming its British Airtours subsidiary to "Caledonian" (which it ended up selling in 1995).
While the Gulf War screwed up the airline industry worldwide, British Airways kept itself afloat by a healthy combination of downsizing and expansion. They left Ireland, revamped their operations at Gatwick Airport, opened a German airline called Deutsche BA, and bought half of the French airline TAT and a quarter of Australia's Qantas. They attempted to buy part of Sabena, but were turned down by the European Commission: then, in 1992, they announced a major investment in a struggling USAir, before abandoning it in the face of American regulators' disapproval and settling for a smaller portion of the airline.
The BA-US relationship ended up becoming one of the first successful code sharing arrangements in history, but BA's next major love affair, a code share with American Airlines proposed in 1997, fell flat. USAir, meanwhile, decided that BA's infidelity was questionable, and divorced itself from BA, becoming an independent US Airways. While BA and AA still can't codeshare (together, they own 70% of the London-US market, which would make them a monopoly in regulators' eyes), their relationship was the foundation of the successful oneworld airline alliance.
Also in 1997, BA introduced one of the most dramatic livery designs since the days of Braniff International. Each aircraft's tail had its own unique pattern and colors, based on the ethnic designs of a BA destination (African zigzags, Chinese kanji, Dutch delft). This scheme lasted until 2001, when BA decided that it lacked identity, and replaced it with a Union Jack-like tail emblem, with a speedbird-shaped ribbon by the front doors.
Today, BA serves 159 destinations in 75 countries, and has a global reach that is paralleled by very few airlines, with flights to six continents from Heathrow and Gatwick Airport. Their fleet consists of:
64 Boeing 747
43 Boeing 777
21 Boeing 767
36 Boeing 757
72 Boeing 737
10 Airbus A320
28 Airbus A319
27 Embraer RJ45
16 Avro RJ100
3 BAe 146
13 Jetstream 41
13 BAe ATP
5 ATR 72
15 de Havilland DHC-8
Their widebody aircraft feature private cabins in first class. Until 2003, BA was also one of only two airlines operating the Concorde (the other was Air France).
With their fast planes, funny hats, and worldwide network, it's easy to see how BA bills itself as the world's favourite airline. But then again, there's always Virgin Atlantic.
www.britishairways.com
www.bashares.com
www.american-britishairways.com