British Airways

The book I read to research this post was British Airways by Keith Gaskell which is an excellent book which I bought from a carboot sale. This book was written around 2000 so hasn't got the latest information ie it doesn't mention anything about the legal situation and battle between Virgin Atlantic & BA & Lord Kings subsequent departure. It is however a good history record upto that point. British Airways was a nationalised company that was made up from the merger of British European Airways & British Overseas Air Corporation which were both already nationalised. British Caledonian Airways was formed to give BA some competition which was considered essential. The british airlines had been among the first to have jet airliners in the form of the DeHavilland Comet & later BA would lead the way by having Concorde & I have done a post on Concorde on this site. A lot of the BA fleet would consist of various forms of Boeings who led the world in passenger aircraft construction. At the time of the merger much of the fleet was british aircraft which had been purchased patriotically but was now unecomical, also much of it was aged. In particularly 747s were used on the atlantic routes where more passengers could be ferried more economically than before. Also on routes to America that weren't so popular Tristars were used. At one point some of less popular flights from London to Los Angeles required a smaller plane than a 747 but the Tristar didn't have the range so they did a deal with Air New Zealand to cover these flights with DC10s. A lot of British Airways has consisted of using partners & sometimes they have had to form subsidiaries for flights such as those from Penzance to the Scilly Isles. At one point they used Chinook helicopters on that route but they were expensive and gas gusslers so were retired a few years later.