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Home  >  British Airways  >  Beautiful: The Union Of Four British Airways Heritage Liveries
British Airways

Beautiful: The Union Of Four British Airways Heritage Liveries

Matthew Klint Posted onApril 11, 2019April 11, 2019 7 Comments

To celebrate the 50,000th customer on an aircraft with heritage livery, British Airways brought them together at London Heathrow for a special photo-op.

The aircraft were all parked near BA’s maintained base at LHR for scheduled downtime. Positioning the planes for the photos below took a good two hours. A current A319 with Chatham Dockyard livery was also added to the mix:

all images courtesy of British Airways

CEO Alex Cruz underscored how these retro-liveries have been well-received:

The excitement and pride that we’ve witnessed from customers and colleagues as these heritage liveries, which we painted to mark our centenary, have flown around the globe has been unparalleled.

Social media has been fired up with images from travellers all over the world when they’ve spotted the aircraft and as some 50,000 people have now flown on them since they arrived back in the fleet we wanted to capture a special photo to share with them.

Why I Love Heritage Liveries

I like writing about heritage liveries because I find them to be linked to many happy memories. While I have only flown BA in the Chatham Dockyard era, as that livery evolves over the years and decades I may well look back affectionally upon it in the same way so many look back on the liveries pictured above.

Which is your favorite BA livery?

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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7 Comments

  1. DavidB Reply
    April 11, 2019 at 7:57 am

    I’m rather disappointed the mid-90s Commonwealth Colours (as I call the tail markings from that period) livery was ignored. It was said Margaret Thatcher complained to Lird King that they were a travesty for removing the Union Jack from the aircraft tails and he killed the program and the current design was brought in.

    Still I agree it’s great to see such liveries that harken back to the origins of the airlines we know today. One of the few good things to come from theAA/US merger was the painting of several aircraft in the colours of the many airlines that preceded the two “survivors”. AC and LH also have a few legacy liveries plying the sky.

    • Phil Duncan Reply
      April 13, 2019 at 6:02 am

      Mrs Thatcher when shown models of the planes with the ‘World Tails’ opened her handbag, took out a large handkerchief and covered the tails as she said the images shamed Britain.

      They were also unpopular with ATC around the world as they were not easily identifiable as BA causing confusion.

      They were either loved or hated and mostly hated but the current ‘Chatam Dockyard’ livery is one of them but it was reserved to Concorde but ultimately was applied to the whole fleet.

  2. James Reply
    April 11, 2019 at 7:59 am

    There should be better angle amd background for these kind of photos….

  3. Kenneth Reply
    April 11, 2019 at 11:51 am

    My favorite is the final BOAC livery, which looked so elegant on the carrier’s aircraft of that era; the VC10 and stretched Super VC10, the 707, and finally the 747. IMHO this was one of the best-ever airline liveries.

  4. Dougie Reply
    April 11, 2019 at 12:45 pm

    My favourite (currently) is the BOAC. That aircraft flew me to PHL this week.

  5. derek Reply
    April 11, 2019 at 1:04 pm

    The BOAC and current livery are the best. The Landry (?) one with the red tail is ok. The next one was very good except the top should be white, not grey.

  6. Phil Duncan Reply
    April 13, 2019 at 5:59 am

    I’m old enough to have flown with BEA, BOAC and British Airways so have flown their planes in all of the liveries.

    My favourite is the Landor livery which also speaks of the day when BA was an excellent and cutting edge airline – billed at the time as ‘the world’s favourite airline’, it’s been downhill ever since!

    I also have a soft spot for BEA which I remember clearly as a boy and back in the day flying was very exciting – you get dressed in your best clothes back then because it was for almost all, a very special occasion.

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