History of British Airways
Following privatisation, British Airways entered a period of rapid growth, leading to the use of the slogan "The World's Favourite Airline", and dominated its domestic rivals during the early 1990s.
Under Willie Walsh, who became CEO in 2005, British Airways faced a price-fixing scandal, moved its primary hub to Heathrow Terminal 5, and experienced threats of industrial action, leading to a strike in March 2010.
The Chairman of BOAC, Miles Thomas, was in favour of the idea as a potential solution to a disagreement between the two airlines as to which should serve the increasingly important oil regions of the Middle East.
However, opposition from the Treasury blocked the idea, and an agreement was reached instead to allow BEA to serve Ankara in Turkey, and in return to leave all routes east and south of Cyprus to BOAC.
[27][30] The management of British Airways resisted political pressure to purchase the new Airbus A300, stating that it had no requirement for the aircraft;[31] this rejection complicated Britain's integration into the European Union.
Although the carrier did not disclose specific numbers, media reports estimated that the Heathrow to New York service made an annual £20 million operating profit by the early 2000s (decade).
[57] Offering generous inducements for staff to leave led to record losses of £545 million, to the cost of taxpayers but to the benefit of the future privatised company.
[79] Following Virgin's highly publicised mercy mission to Iraq to fly home hostages of Saddam Hussein in 1991,[80] King is reported to have told Marshall and his PA Director David Burnside to "do something about Branson".
[103] BA had planned to acquire as much as a 44% share in USAir, but backed down following a lack of approval from the US government;[104][105] developing a significantly larger presence in the North American market remained a major priority of British Airways throughout the 1990s.
[106] Another crucial event in 1993 occurred as BA formed British Asia Airways, a subsidiary based in the Republic of China (Taiwan), to operate between London and Taipei.
Perhaps the most symbolic change to British Airways in the turbulent year of 1993 came when Lord King stepped down as chairman of the company and was replaced by former deputy Colin Marshall.
[112][113] In 1995, British Airways began planning for its future corporate headquarters at Harmondsworth Moor,[114] to supplant its then-headquarters at Speedbird House at Heathrow Airport.
[129][130] In 1996, British Airways, with its newly appointed CEO Bob Ayling, entered a period of financial turbulence due to increased competition, high oil prices,[131][132] and a strong pound.
[133] The airline's management clashed with trade unions over planned changes, Ayling taking a hardline stance;[134] the resulting disruption from the confrontations cost the company hundreds of millions of pounds.
[136][152][153] Several influential figures, such as former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, spoke out against abandoning the Union Flag scheme and BA turning its back on the nation.
On 6 June 1999, he announced that all newly delivered and overhauled BA planes would bear the Union Flag, based on a design first used on Concorde; the cosmopolitan scheme was abandoned.
A publicly well-received decision of Eddington's was to completely end the use of ethnic liveries on aircraft, announcing in May 2001 that all of BA's fleet would be repainted in a variant of the Union Flag design used on Concorde.
Walsh pledged to retain the full-service model on its much reduced UK network as a means of distinguishing BA from the competition, and that customers were willing to pay extra for higher service levels.
[192][193] In September 2005, new CEO Willie Walsh announced dramatic changes to the management of British Airways, with the aim of saving £300 million by 2008, the cost of the airline's move to its new hub at Heathrow's Terminal 5.
[196] In June 2006, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) began investigating allegations that BA was price-fixing fuel surcharges on long haul flights.
[199][202] In January 2008, BA unveiled its new subsidiary OpenSkies which took advantage of the liberalisation of transatlantic traffic rights, flying non-stop between major European cities and the United States.
In June 2009, British Airways contacted some 30,000 employees in the United Kingdom, including Walsh, asking them to work without pay over a period of between one week and one month to save money.
[221] On 14 December 2009 cabin crew at British Airways voted in favour of strike action over the Christmas period over job cuts and contract changes.
[229] Across April and May 2010, much of Western and Northern Europe had their airspace closed due to huge density ash clouds from the erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland.
[245] June Fraser, president of the Chartered Society of Designers, wrote to The Times in protest, stating that "a barely distinguishable heraldic device perched incongruously above the remnants of the earlier instantly recognizable and appropriate solution" was an alarming development.
[248] Several people spoke out against the change, including the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who famously covered the tail of a model 747 at an event with a handkerchief, to show her displeasure.
[249] BA's traditional rival, Virgin Atlantic, took advantage of the negative press coverage by applying the Union flag to the winglets of their aircraft along with the slogan "Britain's national flagcarrier".
[citation needed] BA launched direct service between London Heathrow and Chengdu in 2013; to celebrate, the front of a Boeing 777 was painted to resemble a giant panda.
In 2021, BA painted one Airbus A320neo (G-TTNA) in what it called its Better World livery, using two blue shades to render the Chatham Dockyard tail flag and adding a coordinating finish to the front half of the aircraft and its engine nacelles.
[264] Similarly, G-BNLY (retrojet 'Landor') and G-BYGC ('BOAC') were preserved, with BNLY going to Dunsfold Aerodrome alongside G-CIVW (a 747 painted in Chatham Dockyard) to serve in the film and television industry, and BYGC going to the Bro Tathan business park as a permanent exhibit.
