Fifty years of British Airways: the definitive timeline

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British Airways began flying 50 years in the past this month. The state-owned airline was fashioned from BEA, BOAC, Cambrian and Northeast. Its major base, then as now, was London Heathrow. But the route community was very totally different, as airline business government Jonathan Hinkles found from the first-ever BA timetable.

“In 1974 the ‘World’s Favourite Airline’ actually did fly around the world, although it probably wasn’t a hugely economic exercise to do so, even then,” he says. “Three times a week, the BA591 westabout VC10 set off from Heathrow via New York JFK, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Nadi and Sydney to Melbourne. Another VC10 set off eastabout to Melbourne – typically via Frankfurt, Doha, Calcutta and Singapore. Some excursion: the VC10 which left London at 1pm on Tuesday would arrive back at Heathrow from this epic trip at 9.50pm on Friday evening.”

For the only a few individuals who might afford such a visit, web reserving was not accessible, says Mr Hinkles: “In pre-online days, passengers were urged to book at a British Airways travel shop on many high streets including Nottingham, Watford and Bristol.”

Much else has modified in the course of 5 a long time. These are the key occasions.

1975 (12 January): BA launches a brand new “Shuttle” from Heathrow to Glasgow. Passengers can simply flip up, board the aircraft as much as 10 minutes earlier than departure, and purchase a ticket on board. If no seats can be found, a standby plane will probably be deployed – generally for a single passenger.

The Shuttle is later expanded to Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast.

1976 (21 January): Concorde enters service with British Airways, flying from Heathrow to Bahrain. Passengers are supplied with complimentary cigars. The major goal, New York JFK, is off-limits as a result of of issues about noise.

1976 (24 May): Concorde flies to Washington DC.

1977 July: Piccadilly Line on the London Underground prolonged to Heathrow; the Queen conducts the official opening in December that 12 months.

1977 (22 November): Concorde begins flying to New York JFK, which might turn into its principal route for the subsequent 26 years.

1978: A future of on-line reserving and no-frills flying is predicted with astonishing accuracy by Ross Stainton, then-chief government of British Airways. He writes: “I can envisage do-it-yourself reservations where the prospective passenger consults a TV display to see what is available and at what price, and then makes his own booking entry into the computer.

“We shall need separate, very simple check-in facilities for discount passengers, and the fare will entitle them only to a straightforward end-to-end journey with no stopovers.”

1981 (29 March): VC10 jets finish service with British Airways. The closing pair of flights on the rear-engined long-haul jets are charters for lovers.

1983 (25 January): First Boeing 757 is delivered to British Airways, named Windsor Castle. The plane was retired from passenger service in 2001 however remains to be believed to be flying cargo.

1984 (March): Concorde begins flying to Miami, as an extension of the Washington DC service.

1984 (June): Music entrepreneur Richard Branson launches a one-plane airline referred to as Virgin Atlantic, flying from London Gatwick to New York’s Newark airport. Premium passengers are promised luxurious in the Upper Class cabin. The declare of “first class standards at business class fares” endures at the moment. Over the subsequent few years the start-up launches to many different BA locations, together with Miami, Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

1985 (8 July): A small, secondhand Brazilian aircraft operates the first flight for a brand new Irish airline, Ryanair, from Waterford to Gatwick. The route not operates, however Ryanair appears to be hanging on. It is now the most secure airline in the world in phrases of passengers flown and not using a deadly accident, and the most worthwhile provider in Europe. During a BA cabin crew strike in 2010, Ryanair covers some Heathrow flights for British Airways.

1985 (22 August): Boeing 737 belonging to British Airtours, the constitution subsidiary of BA, catches fireplace on the runway at Manchester; 55 individuals die. It was the final deadly accident involving British Airways, which has a formidably good security file.

1987 (30 January): The authorities’s shares in British Airways go on sale. The supply is 11 occasions oversubscribed.

Today, BA is generally foreign-owned. As half of Spanish-registered airline conglomerate IAG, over half the shares should be held by EU entities/residents. The authorities of Qatar owns one other quarter.

1987 (April): British Airways appoints its first feminine pilots.

1987 (December): British Airways takes over its nearest rival, British Caledonian.

1985 (13 July): Live Aid concert events in London and Philadelphia; Phil Collins performs in each on the similar afternoon, courtesy of a British Airways Concorde.

1986 (December): Concorde begins scheduled service to Barbados. Most flights need to refuel at Shannon in Ireland.

1987 (July): A tiny start-up airline named Emirates begins flying from its hub in Dubai to the UK, touching down at Gatwick. The provider now flies extra worldwide passengers than anybody else, making it the world’s favorite airline.

1987 (October): A trial ban on smoking ban begins on some British Airways flights from London to Vienna. It’ll by no means catch on, I predict a couple of months later when pressured to spend two hours and not using a cigarette.

1987 (26 October): London City airport opens.

1988 (January): Club World and Club Europe manufacturers launched by British Airways – the new names for enterprise class on intercontinental and European providers respectively.

1988 (18 March): Gatwick North Terminal opens, and British Airways strikes in from the authentic, now South, terminal.

1988 (August): Just forward of the Seoul Olympics, British Airways launches flights to the South Korean capital.

1991 (January): British Airways launches World Traveller and Euro Traveller manufacturers.

1992 (27 November): British Airways acquires a Gatwick-based rival, Dan-Air, for £1. Dan Air is now the identify of a Romanian airline.

1993 (July): Last BAC 1-11 leaves service with British Airways.

1993 (January): British Airways pays damages plus authorized prices to Virgin Atlantic and its founder after proof emerges of “dirty tricks” supposed to break Richard Branson’s airline commercially.

1995 (10 November): The first flight of a no-frills airline referred to as easyJet, takes off from Luton to Glasgow. Fares begin at £29 one-way. The funds provider now has an even bigger fleet than British Airways and flies extra passengers.

1997 (November): British Airways reveals a brand new low-fare airline to be primarily based at Stansted, later launched as Go.

1999 (1 February): British Airways is a founder member of the Oneworld alliance, together with American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas.

1999 (November): First BA-branded plane at London City airport

2000 (9 March): The British Airways London Eye carries its first passengers. The following day, BA’s chief government Bob Ayling was sacked after poor monetary outcomes at the airline.

2000 (25 July): An Air France Concorde catches fireplace shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle. The crash kills all 109 individuals on board and 4 individuals on the floor.

2000 (15 August): When one of the causes of the Paris crash – the vulnerability of the gasoline tanks – emerges, British Airways’ Concorde is briefly grounded. The aircraft stays out of service for over a 12 months.

2000 (31 December): For the first time the quantity of individuals utilizing Heathrow airport in a single 12 months exceeds Britain’s inhabitants.

2001 (April): British Airways begins to part out paper tickets.

2001 (11 September): Nearly 3,000 individuals die when 4 civilian plane are hijacked after take-off from Boston and Newark airports. Three of them are flown into buildings, destroying the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and damaging half of the Pentagon in Washington. The fourth plane, United flight 93, crashes in a discipline in Pennsylvania after passengers overpower the hijackers. British Airways flights to and from the US are grounded for a number of days.

2003 (24 October): Final industrial flight of Concorde.

2005 (31 December): Of 24 British Airways flights that I took in that 12 months, solely three have been on time – making 87.5 per cent late from a really restricted pattern. Punctuality has since improved. In 2023, solely 40 per cent of all BA flights have been greater than quarter-hour not on time (the business measure of “late”).

2007 (25 October): First industrial flight on the Airbus A380 “superjumbo”, operated by Singapore Airlines from Singapore to Sydney. British Airways presently operates 12 of the double-decker jets.

2008 (February): British Airways pronounces plans for London City-New York JFK flight utilizing a small subsonic plane, the A318. It is nicknamed “son of Concorde”. The service by no means succeeds financially and is grounded in 2020 at the begin of the Covid pandemic.

2008 (March): “Open skies” deal is concluded between the European Union and US that ends restrictions on British Airways transatlantic flights – for instance Atlanta and Texas providers being obliged to make use of Gatwick.

2008 (27 March): British Airways’ devoted Terminal 5 at London Heathrow opens. The plan had been to maneuver many flights in a single day to the new hub. But inside hours, a number of unexpected issues result in the near-collapse of the complete British Airways operation.

2008 (19 June): British Airways begins flying between Paris and New York with a subsidiary named OpenSkies. It closed in September 2018.

2009 (6 October): Dispute involving cabin crew belonging to Unite breaks out over plans to chop 1,700 cabin crew jobs and freeze pay by then-chief government Willie Walsh. A deliberate Christmas strike is dominated illegal by the High Court.

2009 (December): British Airways begins flights from Heathrow to Las Vegas; in 2012, the Nevada metropolis grew to become the solely long-haul vacation spot served from each Gatwick and Heathrow.

2010 (20 March): British Airways cabin crew stroll out for the first of a collection of strikes, which don’t finish till May 2011. As half of the settlement a brand new unit, Mixed Fleet, is launched for some Heathrow flights.

2010 (14 April): The skies of Europe are progressively closed by air-traffic controllers as a result of of fears of an ash cloud attributable to Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. The Civil Aviation Authority ban on flying is lifted after six days when British Airways planes from throughout the world are ordered to depart for London.

2011 (January): British Airways merges with Iberia of Spain to type IAG. BA’s chief government, Willie Walsh, turns into CEO of IAG.

2012 (April): British Airways takes over BMI, which has been dropping cash closely.

2014 (8 March): MH370, a scheduled Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappears over the South China Sea. Per week later, it’s revealed that the airline is believed to be in the Indian Ocean. A multinational search has to date did not find the website of the plane.

2018 (31 March): British Airways is the first passenger airline to have generated greater than US$1 billion (£800m) on a single air route in a 12 months, between London Heathrow and New York JFK.

2020 (29 January): With concern rising about “the Wuhan coronavirus”, British Airways pronounces it’s suspending all flights to Beijing and Shanghai in China till March 2020. These are the first of tens of 1000’s of flights cancelled as a result of of the virus.

2020 (17 July): As the Covid pandemic rages, British Airways says it should completely floor its complete fleet of Boeing 747 “Jumbo jets”.

2020 (16 September): Alex Cruz, then-chief government of British Airways tells MPs that his airline is burning by £20 million in money per day and flying solely 18.7 per cent of passengers in contrast with 2019, because of the Covid pandemic. “We’re still fighting for our own survival,” he says to the Transport Select Committee.

2020 (19 September): Dominic Raab, then-foreign secretary, chooses United Airlines slightly than British Airways for a visit again from Washington DC to London Heathrow.

2021 (6 January): Not an awesome begin to the 12 months for British Airways. All worldwide leisure journey from the UK is banned till 17 May. Anyone at an airport, seaport or worldwide railway station searching for to depart the UK and not using a motive for exemption faces a positive. Three weeks later, then-home secretary Priti Patel says: “There are still too many people coming in and out of our country each day.”

2021 (16 July): Ahead of what British Airways and different airways thought could be a worthwhile summer season, the authorities devises a brand new Covid class, “amber plus”, for British travellers to France – successfully inserting the nation off limits. French minister Clément Beaune says: “The UK’s quarantine measures for France are excessive and incomprehensible in health terms.”

2022 (12 July): On high of BA cancelling 1000’s of flights because of inadequate workers, London Heathrow imposes a cap of 100,000 departing passengers a day at Britain’s busiest airport.

2023 (26 May): The newest in an extended collection of IT failures at British Airways grounds a whole bunch of flights.

2024 (29 February): British Airways’ guardian firm, IAG, pronounces file earnings.