British Airways Wallpapers
British Airways Wallpapers for your desktop, free to download
British Airways Wallpapers
British Airways Airlines,Megawallpapers:y British Airways (LSE: BAY, NYSE: BAB) is the largest airline of the United Kingdom. It is also one of the largest airlines in the world, with more flights from Europe across the Atlantic than any other operator. Its main hubs are London Heathrow and London Gatwick, with wide-reaching European and domestic shorthaul networks, including smaller hubs at other UK airports including Manchester, from which some longer-haul flights are also operated. The airline's origins go back to the birth of civil aviation and the pioneering days after the First World War. On 25 August 1919 its forerunner company, Aircraft Transport and Travel (AT&T), launched the world's first daily international scheduled air service, between London and Paris. On 31 March 1924, Britain's four fledgling airlines - Instone, Handley Page, Daimler Airways (a successor to AT&T) and British Air Marine Navigation - merged to form Imperial Airways, which developed its Empire routes to Australia and Africa. [br]Meanwhile a number of smaller UK air transport companies had started flights. These merged in 1935 to form the original privately-owned British Airways Ltd. Following a government review Imperial Airways and British Airways were nationalised in 1939 to form the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). Post-war, BOAC continued to operate long-haul services, other than routes to South America - these were flown by British South American Airways, which was merged back into BOAC in 1949. Continental European and domestic flights were flown by a new airline, British European Airways (BEA). The 1950s saw the world enter the passenger jet era - led by BOAC, with the De Havilland Comet flying to Johannesburg in 1952, halving the previous flight time. The birth of the mass package-holiday business meant changes for the airline industry. BEA met this by establishing BEA Airtours, which took off in 1970. In 1972 BOAC and BEA were combined under the newly formed British Airways Board, with the separate airlines coming together as British Airways in 1974. British Airways, simultaneously with Air France, inaugurated the world's first supersonic passenger service with Concorde in January 1976. [br]Fleet: Up until recently for its main fleet, BA had traditionally been a Boeing customer. This has been always been a subject of controversy, as many expect that as a British carrier it would be natural for BA to support the British manufacturing industry and buy Airbus jets (BAE Systems build all wings for Airbus jets and many Airbus subcontractors are based in the UK). The company has defended its decision by arguing that, with the exception of 29 of its 777 fleet, it has always equipped its Boeing aircraft with British-made Rolls-Royce engines. This goes back to the 1960s when the company ordered Boeing 707s - a condition was placed on the company that it used Rolls-Royce power for the new jets. [br]However, it has operated non-Boeing planes in the past mainly as a result of takeovers and joint agreements with other airlines. One example of this was planes acquired through the buyout of British Caledonian Airways in the 1980s; it successfully operated the Douglas DC-10 and Airbus A320 for a number of years. In the late 1990s British Airways placed its own first direct Airbus order, for over 100 A320/A319s to replace its own ageing fleet of Boeing 737s. [br]BA was an operator of the famous Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic airliner, with a daily service between Heathrow and New York JFK (although the original service was from London to Bahrain). Initially, Concorde was very much a financial burden, placed on the national carrier by the government, and attracted criticism from the press as a white elephant. However Lord King recognised the importance of Concorde to British Airways, and the one thing that everybody agreed was the charismatic value of the aircraft. BA used Concorde to win business customers, guaranteeing a certain number of Concorde upgrades in return for corporate accounts with the airline - a key factor in winning business from transatlantic competitors. [br]With the Paris Crash in 2000, followed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks the following year, coupled to escalating maintenance costs, the future of Concorde was limited — this despite an expensive upgrade. It was announced (on 10 April 2003) that, after 24 October 2003, they would cease scheduled services with Concorde, due to depressed passenger numbers. The last day of its Saturday-only London Heathrow to Barbados Concorde flight was on 30 August 2003. [br]Current Fleet - The British Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft (at December 2005): [br]33 Airbus A319-100 (further 3 on order) [br]5 Airbus A320-100 [br]21 Airbus A320-200 (further 3 on order) [br]7 Airbus A321-200 [br]5 Boeing 737-300 [br]18 Boeing 737-400 [br]9 Boeing 737-500 [br]57 Boeing 747-400 [br]13 Boeing 757-200 [br]21 Boeing 767-300ER [br]3 Boeing 777-200 [br]40 Boeing 777-200ER.
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