Formation and early years (1946–1950) With
the outbreak of war in September 1939 all commercial and private flying within the UK had been severely restricted by the government due to the possibility of civil flights encountering enemy aircraft. To offset this halting of civilian air traffic limited aerial services were instead carried out from 1940 onwards by the state-owned and operated
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) to a number of destinations, both European, and worldwide. On 1 January 1946, the
Attlee government lifted
wartime restrictions on civil flying in the United Kingdom. Within Europe, this resulted in BOAC resuming
Imperial Airways' pre-
war routes to
continental Europe augmented by
Royal Air Force Transport Command non-military flights from
Croydon Airport, using
Douglas Dakotas in
RAF livery flown by crews in RAF uniforms, and UK domestic air services operated by the
Associated Airways Joint Committee (AAJC), which had been formed of several pre-war
charter companies on 27 June 1940. BOAC formed a British European Airways division on 1 January 1946 in anticipation of that year's Civil Aviation Act. Following its formation, BOAC's new division began taking over Transport Command's operations from 4 March 1946. On that day, it inaugurated a weekly Dakota service from Northolt to
Madrid and
Gibraltar, followed by additional Dakota services to
Stavanger and
Oslo,
Copenhagen, as well as
Athens via
Marseille and
Rome. On each of these flights, half of the Dakota's 16 seats were reserved for UK government officials. Initially, crews continued to wear BOAC uniforms. Although some services still used Croydon for some time, the main operating base moved to
RAF Northolt. British scheduled airlines and gave BEA a
legal monopoly as the sole short-haul scheduled British airline. Due to BEA's inability to take over the UK domestic flights of independent scheduled operators such as
Railway Air Services,
Allied Airways (Gandar Dower) and British Channel Islands Airways on 1 August, these independents continued to ply their scheduled routes under contract to BEA until they were absorbed into the corporation in 1947. The first flight operated by the newly constituted British European Airways Corporation departed Northolt for Marseille, Rome and Athens on the day of its formation at 8:40 am. This was followed by further route launches to
Amsterdam,
Brussels and
Lisbon. ("Jupiter" class)G-AHOF in BEA's early bare metalfinish livery at
Manchester Ringwayon 25 September 1947. In November 1946, BEA's first service to
Northern Ireland departed Croydon for Belfast (
Sydenham) via
Liverpool, using an ex-
Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 52/3m operated by independent airline Railway Air Services on the fledgling corporation's behalf. The following month, BEA's Belfast operations transferred to
Nutts Corner while Dakotas replaced the "Jupiter" class Ju 52s from 1947.
Isle of Man Air Services, and
Scottish Airways (which had been formed in 1937 by merging
Northern & Scottish Airways and
Highland Airways) The same year, it inaugurated a scheduled service between
Land's End Airport in southwest
Cornwall,
England, and
St Mary's Airport on the largest island of the
Isles of Scilly archipelago off the southwest coast of Cornwall, using "Islander" class Dragon Rapides.
East Anglian Flying Services (EAFS) was another early BEA associate. The association agreement between BEA and EAFS resulted in the latter operating a
Southend–
Rochester feeder service on behalf of the former. 1948 was also the year BEA's reservations department moved to new premises at Dorland Hall,
Lower Regent Street in London's
West End. BEA made aviation history in 1950 with the world's first turbine-powered commercial air service from London to Paris, using the UK
Ministry of Supply-owned Vickers Viscount 630 prototype G-AHRF.
Expansion, modernisation and commercialisation (1951–1960) Peter Masefield's arrival as managing director (MD) in 1950 marked the beginning of BEA's commercialisation. This entailed introduction of new
cost control measures and innovative methods to boost revenue and
passenger loads, including off-peak fares on late-evening flights and high-frequency services on the London–Paris route. BEA's new commercially aggressive approach soon resulted in monthly earnings of
£1 million. Also in 1952, BEA made
Jersey-based independent airline
Jersey Airlines an associate to develop a network of routes within the Channel Islands and expand services between the islands and the
UK mainland. G-ALWE
RMA Discovery in bare metal finish livery incorporating a burgundy cheatline, a white roof and fin at Manchester in 1953. This aircraft crashed on approach to the airport on 14 March 1957. In 1953, BEA began receiving the first 16 Viscount 701 turboprops it had ordered in August 1950. The first of these "Discovery" class aircraft entered service with 47 mixed-class seats in April 1953, and the first production aircraft (G-AMAV) went on to win the transport class of the
1953 London to Christchurch, New Zealand, air race, with BEA MD
Peter Masefield as team manager and
co-pilot. In July 1955, BEA became the launch customer for the Vanguard, Vickers' new high-capacity turboprop powered by four
Rolls-Royce RB109 "Tyne" engines. The airline's launch order was for 20 aircraft, including six
Vanguard V.951s and 14 heavier
V.953s. In its 1955–56 financial year, BEA carried more than two million passengers for the first time at an all-time high average
load factor of 69.4%. During that period, it recorded a profit of £603,614, mainly as a result of revenue growth accounted for by the Viscount fleet. 1956 was also the year BEA began using Viscounts for nightfreight operations to increase cargo capacity as well as the aircraft's utilisation. In March 1958, BEA ordered six
de Havilland DH106 Comet 4B jet aircraft for delivery from 1960. This was BEA's answer to the impending introduction of the
Sud-Est Caravelle,
Air France's new short-/medium-
range jet, on the
French flag carrier's
European,
North African and
Middle Eastern network, including the prime Heathrow –
Le Bourget route from July 1959. (This version of the
Trident was smaller and lighter than de Havilland's original
DH121 of 1956. At that time BEA's chairman, Anthony Milward, had insisted that a launch order from BEA depended on scaling down the original design, in the belief that the
Vickers Vanguard high-capacity turboprops it had ordered the year before would remain competitive against jets on trunk routes as a result of lower operating and seat-mile costs. In its 1959–60 financial year, BEA carried 3.29 million passengers and recorded a profit of £2.09 million. On 27 September 1960, BEA welcomed its 25-millionth passenger. on 1 June 1960. Also in 1960, BEA took delivery of its final two Viscount 701s bringing its total fleet strength of this sub-type to 50. however, in reality, the corporations would object to applications by independent airlines seeking to be licensed as competitors to the state airlines. Each application by an independent airline for a scheduled route licence was heard by the newly established Air Transport Licensing Board (ATLB), the new UK government body in charge of air transport economic regulation that succeeded ATAC. At these hearings, the independents needed to convince the ATLB that there were sufficient passengers to justify the proposed scheduled services, that these stood a reasonable chance of becoming profitable and that they opened up new markets rather than divert traffic from the corporations to overcome the latter's objections. Although the ATLB granted
British Eagle and
British United Airways (BUA), BEA's and BOAC's two biggest independent competitors during the 1960s, licences to operate rival international scheduled services on several trunk routes from London Heathrow and
Gatwick respectively, these airlines were unable to use them without actual traffic rights. For example, lack of traffic rights prevented BUA from running direct London (Gatwick) – Paris (Le Bourget) scheduled flights although it held a licence for that route, which the ATLB had awarded it in late 1961. In that case, BUA's failure to obtain traffic rights was mainly the result of the French authorities' refusal to grant these without a corresponding reduction in BEA's share of London–Paris flights. In its 1960–61 financial year, BEA carried 3.99 million passengers at an average load factor of 65% and recorded a loss of £1.75 million.
BEA at its peak (1961–1971) in 1971. By the early 1960s, BEA carried just under four million passengers per year, more than any other airline in Europe (excluding
Aeroflot); worldwide (excluding Aeroflot and the Chinese
CAAC Airlines), only the "Big Four" US airlines – American Airlines, United Airlines, TWA and Eastern – carried more. where they operated in a 132-seat, single-class configuration. The Vanguards' introduction on BEA's Heathrow–Scotland trunk routes increased traffic by more than 20%. In 1962, BEA sold its 25% minority holding in Jersey Airlines. This was followed by the
BUA group's takeover of Jersey Airlines in May of that year. On 19 May 1962, Pionair G-ALTT operated the type's final service on BEA's Scottish internal network between
Islay,
Campbeltown and
Glasgow (Renfrew). In its 1962-63 annual report, BEA estimated that introduction of both the Comet 4B and Vanguard had cost it more than £6 million over a two-year period. The airline considered this "a heavy financial burden" in support of British aircraft manufacturers, which adversely impacted its ability to compete with overseas rivals whose choice of aircraft was not influenced by political considerations. This was also the first time a scheduled airline had offered a separate first class cabin on a domestic route in the UK. As British Eagle was restricted to a single daily round-trip on each route, it sought to differentiate itself from BEA. While BEA served these routes with 132-seat Vanguards in an all-
tourist configuration with minimal onboard catering, British Eagle provided full catering on all flights. The former was a first for a UK scheduled domestic carrier while the airline claimed to have started the latter in the UK as well. BEA, whose frequencies were not restricted, responded to the challenge on its three most important domestic routes by scheduling additional flights that departed and arrived at the same time or within 10 minutes of its rival's scheduled departure and arrival times. This had the effect of "sandwiching" British Eagle's flights. BEA's response also included the introduction of trickle loading and subsequent introduction of full onboard catering as well as a separate first class cabin. On 11 March 1964, a BEA Trident 1C operated the Trident's first commercial service, standing in for a Comet 4B that had been scheduled to fly 79 fare-paying passengers from Heathrow to Copenhagen. BEA's regular commercial Trident operations commenced on 1 April 1964. Initially, BEA operated its Tridents in a 79-seat, two-class configuration, comprising 15 first class and 64 tourist class seats. On 26 August 1965, BEA signed the contract for a follow-on Trident order. This covered 15 firm
Trident 2Es plus 10 options for delivery from spring 1968. The 2E series was an
aerodynamically improved version of the original
1C series incorporating the re-arranged interior of the "
hot-and-high"
1E series that resulted in a greater seating capacity, as well as a higher
gross weight, increased fuel capacity by providing an additional fuel tank in the
fin and more powerful
Rolls-Royce Spey engines to fly non-stop from London to
Beirut with 90 passengers. In the mid-1960s, BEA's European rivals began placing orders for new "second-generation" jet aircraft, such as the
Boeing 727-200 and its smaller stablemate, the
737-200, as well as the
Douglas DC-9-30/
40. Compared with the Trident, these were more economical, in terms of range, revenue generation and seat-mile costs. Of particular concern to BEA in this context were Air France's plans to replace
Caravelles with new
727-200s on most of its London–Paris flights. BEA also had a requirement for a jet to replace Vanguards on the Heathrow–Manchester route to regain traffic lost to
British Rail as a result of the electrification of the London–Manchester line and
Berlin-based Viscounts to restore the competitive balance with
Pan Am's new
727s on the internal German services. Therefore, in February 1966, BEA began evaluating the 727-200, 737-200 and
DC-9-40 for these requirements, favouring the former two seating up to 166 and 111 passengers in single-class configuration respectively. In June 1966, BEA requested UK government permission to place an order with
Boeing for 18 727-200s and 23 737-200s. Following the UK government's refusal to grant BEA permission to order an all-
American fleet of Boeing 727-200s and 737-200s, the
Board of Trade (BOT) directed the airline to buy comparable British aircraft instead. This resulted in a BEA order for 18 firm
BAC One-Eleven 500s plus six options in January 1967, for delivery from autumn 1968, to meet BEA's requirement to replace Vanguards/Viscounts on its Heathrow–Manchester and internal German routes. In February 1967, BEA sought UK government approval to order up to 40
BAC Two-Elevens, a 200-seat, six-abreast development of the five-abreast
BAC One-Eleven powered by
Rolls-Royce RB211 high-bypass turbofan engines, for service entry in the early 1970s. The UK government's refusal to let BEA order American aircraft, as well as its subsequent decision to stop funding the development of
BAC's
Two-Eleven and a delay to the rival
Rolls-Royce RB207-powered, 250-seat pan-European
Airbus A300 widebody, configuration. BEA's
BAC One-Eleven 510EDs and
Hawker Siddeley Trident 3Bs also featured common instrumentation to attain a high degree of commonality. This was achieved by having
Smiths supply the
avionics of both aircraft, which in the case of the
One-Eleven replaced the
Collins avionics found on all other 500 series. The differences in flight deck layout between the
510ED and other 500 series were so significant that a separate
aircraft type rating was required to fly the former. On 4 January 1966, BEA's biggest independent rival,
BUA, simultaneously launched daily BAC One-Eleven jet services from Gatwick to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast, which indirectly competed with the corporation's London–Scotland and London – Northern Ireland trunk routes from Heathrow. This allowed BUA to steal a march on BEA by becoming the first scheduled all-jet operator on UK domestic trunk routes. In November 1966, BEA increased its shareholding in BKS Air Transport to 50%. 1967 was also the year the
Wilson government appointed a committee of inquiry under the chairmanship of Professor Sir Ronald Edwards, at the time the chairman of the
Electricity Council and a professor at the
London School of Economics, to deliberate the future prospects of
Britain's air transport industry. The Edwards Committee published its report entitled
British Air Transport in the Seventies on 2 May 1969. • permitting the corporations to participate in the
inclusive tour (IT)
charter market alongside the independents by establishing dedicated, non-
IATA subsidiaries • creation of a
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to combine the separate regulatory functions of the UK Air Registration Board (ARB), ATLB and BOT in a new statutory body with enhanced powers. To enable the new "Second Force" to become viable and to redress the competitive imbalance between it and the corporations, the Heath government ordered a limited route transfer from the latter to the former. For BEA this entailed the loss of the Heathrow – Le Bourget route, which was transferred to its newly formed independent rival to accommodate the newcomer's Gatwick – Le Bourget service within the constraints of the
Anglo-French bilateral air treaty. On 15 February 1968, BEA took delivery of its first Trident 2E. On 1 April 1968, BEA's first scheduled service to Paris
Orly Airport departed Heathrow; this resulted in splitting its Paris operations between Orly and Le Bourget. Following its commercial debut on 1 September 1968 on BEA's internal German routes, the airline's new One-Eleven 500s began regular scheduled operations on 17 November 1968, respectively replacing Vanguards and Viscounts on the corporation's Heathrow–Manchester and Berlin routes. G-APEK still in basic BEA "Speedjack"
colours following the BEA-BOAC merger. The aircraft is seen here at
London Heathrow, ca. mid-1970s. By 1969, BEA carried 132,000
tonnes of freight each year. That year, it also opened a new cargo centre at Heathrow, which it jointly operated with BOAC. To cope with increasing amounts of air freight, it began replacing its nine Argosy freighters with the same number of
Vickers V.953C Merchantmans, which were converted
V.953 Vanguard passenger planes.
Aviation Traders Engineering Limited (ATEL) of
Southend converted the first two of these while BEA's inhouse engineering department converted the remainder using kits supplied by ATEL. In its 1969–70 financial year, BEA's revenue from ticket sales was £126 million resulting in a profit of £6.5 million, almost twice the previous year's and the biggest in the airline's history until that time. In its 1970–71 financial year, BEA carried 8.67 million passengers at an average load factor of just over 54%. During that period it employed just under 25,000 people, revenues totalled £133 million and the operating loss stood at £780,000. On 18 February 1971, BEA received its first Trident 3B. Commercial operations began on 1 March of that year on the airline's Heathrow–Orly route. On 31 October 1971, BEA operated its last scheduled service from Heathrow to Le Bourget, marking the end of 25 years' continuous operations by the airline at the historic Paris airport. This move was necessitated by the Anglo-French bilateral air treaty to make room for
British Caledonian's Gatwick – Le Bourget service, which began the following day. on mainline routes from Birmingham and regional routes from Newcastle and Leeds/Bradford respectively. Together with the ongoing Trident 3B deliveries, this additional Trident purchase would bring the total number of Tridents in BEA's fleet to 67, making the type its most numerous
jetliner. 1971 was also the year BEA underwent a major reorganisation under its then chairman Henry Marking entailing the establishment of 10 divisions that were meant to act as
profit centres. These were • BEA Mainline • BEA Cargo • Super One-Eleven • Scottish Airways • Channel Islands Airways •
BEA Helicopters • BEA Airtours • British Air Services • Travel Sales • Sovereign Group Hotels. BEA's wholly owned charter subsidiary BEA Airtours assumed responsibility for all of its regular, non-IATA flying activities using
fixed-wing aircraft – i.e., predominantly IT
charter flights under contract to third-party
tour operators. The British Air Services division assumed responsibility for Cambrian Airways and Northeast Airlines, BEA's two majority-owned regional airline subsidiaries. This included all services operated by these airlines on behalf of their
parent company, principally all of the corporation's domestic and international services from and to Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds/Bradford, Liverpool, Newcastle and the Isle of Man, as well as selected international regional services from Heathrow such as Bordeaux, Cork, Luxembourg and Rimini. However, it was only following the recommendations of the 1969 Edwards Report, This event coincided with the establishment of the CAA, the UK's new, unified regulator for the air transport industry. One of the newly formed British Airways Board's first major decisions was to place a
£60 million order for six Rolls-Royce RB211-powered
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar series 1 widebodies on BEA's behalf, with an option on six more for either BEA or BOAC. BEA was to take delivery of its first widebodied aircraft during the fourth quarter of 1974. On 1 September 1972, BEA became the British European Airways Division of the newly formed British Airways Group. In its 1973–74 financial year, BEA's last, the airline carried 8.74 million passengers and – excluding losses on its Scottish and Channel Islands operations – recorded its highest-ever profit of £6.7 million. However, even after the merger, a British Airways European Division, which incorporated the former BEA Mainline operation, the erstwhile Super One-Eleven and Cargo divisions, as well as
British Airtours, continued to exist alongside a British Airways Overseas, a British Airways Regional and four other divisions until 1 April 1977 when these were replaced by a unified operating structure organised into a number of departments, including commercial operations, flight operations, engineering, planning, catering and personnel. These organisational changes were accompanied by the adoption of a single, two-letter, IATA airline identification code for the entire airline, i.e., BA, the old BOAC/Overseas Division code. Until then, each of the three main airline divisions had its own two-letter, IATA airline identification code, BA for Overseas, BE for European and BZ for Regional. In BEA service the Herons were known as "Hebridean" class aircraft seating 14 passengers on regular commercial flights. The Heron operated its first air ambulance service on 4 March 1955 while BEA crews were still undergoing conversion training on the new type. This was followed by a naming ceremony for both aircraft held at Glasgow's Renfrew Airport on 18 March 1955, when each aircraft was named after a Scottish medical pioneer (G-ANXA, the second aircraft to be delivered on 23 February 1955, was named
John Hunter while G-ANXB, the first aircraft to be delivered on 12 February 1955, was named
Sir James Young Simpson). Scheduled operations commenced on 18 April 1955, following which one aircraft was exclusively used on scheduled services while the other was kept on stand-by for air ambulance duties. From 1962, BEA supplemented the Herons it used on its Scottish internal services with three new, 48-seater
Handley Page Dart Herald 100 series turboprops. These had originally been ordered in 1959 through the Ministry of Supply, which leased them to the airline. BEA operated its first commercial
Herald service on 16 April 1962 on the
Northern Isles route from Glasgow to
Sumburgh via
Wick, Aberdeen and
Kirkwall. However, BEA operated its Heralds, which wore the red, black and white livery, only for a few years because of high crew training, maintenance and spares costs. 1962 was also the year BEA introduced Viscounts on its Scottish network. These took over the routes to
Benbecula and
Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides from 21 May, only two days after BEA's last-ever Pionair service from Islay via Campbeltown to Renfrew. in the "Speedjack" livery of BEA Scottish Airways (background). The aircraft is seen at
London Gatwick sharing the ramp with a
British Caledonian BAC One-Eleven (foreground) on 12 March 1972 To improve the financial prospects of its loss-making Scottish
lifeline routes, BEA established
Scottish Airways Division in 1971. Glasgow-headquartered Scottish Airways became financially accountable for BEA's Scottish internal routes. It also assumed financial responsibility for the airline's services from Glasgow to Belfast, as well as from Aberdeen and Inverness to Heathrow. While it was initially operationally responsible for its entire network as well as the Scottish Air Ambulance Service, operational responsibility for the Aberdeen–Heathrow route passed to BEA's
Super One-Eleven division on 1 April 1973 when the latter's One-Eleven 500s began replacing Scottish Airways Viscounts and
mainline division Tridents. Following BEA's last scheduled Heron service from Barra via
Tiree to Glasgow in March 1973 and successful route trials of the new
Skyliners, which wore a modified BEA "Speedjack" livery incorporating dual
BEA/
British airways titles, the latter debuted on BEA's Scottish internal services from Glasgow to Barra and Campbeltown. BEA's Skyliners were intended to replace the airline's Herons as air ambulances as well; however, when Glasgow-based independent
air taxi,
charter and regional scheduled operator
Loganair assumed responsibility for the Scottish Air Ambulance Service on 1 April 1973, the Skyliners had yet to enter service. This turn of events therefore marked the end of BEA's air ambulance services in Scotland after 25 years' continuous operation.
Channel Islands BEA acquired a presence in the Channel Islands as a result of the takeover of
Channel Islands Airways on 1 April 1947. Channel Islands Airways was the holding company and successor of pre-war independent scheduled airlines
Jersey Airways and
Guernsey Airways. It was also among the independents that were absorbed into BEA following their nationalisation which began earlier that year. BEA commenced its services in the Channel Islands in 1947, using Dragon Rapides inherited from its independent predecessors. BEA's withdrawal from Alderney, as well as from Southampton–Guernsey, Jersey–Dinard and Guernsey–Dinard, on 20 April 1956 coincided with the airline's last Rapide service in the Channel Islands. 1956 was also the year that saw Viscounts supplementing DC-3s/Pionairs on the corporation's Heathrow–Jersey route as well as a new summer service from Belfast to Jersey. On 1 August 1960, a new paved runway opened at Guernsey, which enabled the introduction of bigger, heavier aircraft types on BEA's (and other airlines') services to and from the island. as a result of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act that had been enacted the year before. This had abolished the corporations' statutory monopoly on principal domestic and international scheduled routes. On 31 March 1962, BEA disposed of its minority holding in Jersey Airlines. as well as all of the corporation's services between Liverpool and Belfast. This route transfer also resulted in Cambrian's acquisition of six ex-BEA Viscount 701s, its first turboprop aircraft, to serve the Welsh
regional carrier's enlarged network.
Isles of Scilly Following the inauguration of scheduled services between Land's End in Cornwall and St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly in 1947, BEA continued serving this route with Dragon Rapides due to a lack of a suitable
fixed-wing alternative until
BEA Helicopters took it over on 2 May 1964. On that day, BEA's remaining three Rapides were replaced with its helicopter subsidiary's new
Sikorsky S-61N rotorcraft on the
Scillies route.
Overseas-based operations BEA in Berlin From 1946 until 1974, BEA operated a comprehensive network of high-frequency, short-haul scheduled services between West Germany and West Berlin. This had come about as a result of an agreement between the
United States, the United Kingdom,
France and the
Soviet Union at the end of
World War II, which prohibited
Germany from having its own airlines and restricted the provision of commercial air services to and from Berlin to air transport providers headquartered in these four countries. Rising
Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the three Western powers resulted in
unilateral Soviet withdrawal from attendance at the
Four Power Allied Control Council in 1948, culminating in the
division of Germany the following year.
Soviet insistence on a very narrow interpretation of the post-war agreement on the Western powers' access rights to Berlin meant that until the end of the Cold War air transport in West Berlin continued to be confined to the carriers of the Allied Control Commission powers. Aircraft had to fly across hostile
East German territory through three wide
air corridors at a maximum
altitude of . BEA's first-ever internal German flight took to the air in September 1946 when one of its DC-3s departed
Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel for
RAF Gatow in Berlin. BEA's move to Tempelhof resulted in a significant increase in passenger numbers due to the removal of
Allied restrictions on the carriage of local civilians on commercial airline services from/to West Berlin and Tempelhof's central location. This enabled the airline to expand its Berlin-based fleet to six Douglas DC-3s. (BEA continued to augment its Berlin fleet with additional aircraft leased from other airlines on an
ad hoc basis. This included an ex-
Transair Vickers Viscount 700 belonging to its newly formed independent rival
British United Airways, which was damaged beyond repair on 30 October 1961 in a non-fatal landing accident at
Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport at the end of a passenger flight that had originated at Tempelhof.) In 1958, BEA began replacing its ageing piston airliners with
Vickers Viscount 701 turboprop aircraft in a high-density, 63-seat single class seating arrangement. Up to 10 new
Vickers Viscount 802s, which featured a more spacious, 66-seat single-class seating arrangement, soon replaced the older series 701 aircraft. The greater range and higher cruising speed of the
802 series enabled BEA to inaugurate a non-stop London Heathrow –
Berlin Tempelhof service on 1 November 1965. demonstrator aircraft for evaluation by BEA. A week later, on 29 January, BEA began evaluating the BAC One-Eleven's suitability for its Berlin operations, with the start of a series of
test flights conducted on its behalf by BAC's
475 series demonstrator. This included a number of takeoffs and landings at Tempelhof to test the aircraft's short-field performance. On 18 March 1966, BEA's main competitor on the internal German services (IGS) routes,
Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), became the first airline to commence regular, year-round jet operations from Tempelhof with new 128-seat, single-class
Boeing 727 100 series, one of the first jet aircraft with a short-field capability. Pan Am's move put BEA at a considerable competitive disadvantage, especially on the busy Berlin–Frankfurt route where the former out-competed the latter with both modern jet planes as well as a higher flight frequency. BEA responded to Pan Am by increasing the Berlin-based fleet to 13 Viscounts by winter 1966/7 to offer higher frequencies. This also entailed re-configuring
aircraft cabins in a lower-density seating arrangement, as a result of which the refurbished cabins featured only 53
Comet-type first-class seats in a four-abreast layout instead of 66 five-abreast economy seats. In addition, BEA sought to differentiate itself from its main competitor by providing a superior in-flight catering standard. (BEA's
Silver Star service included complimentary hot meals on all flights whereas Pan Am only offered free on-board snacks. Sections of the local
press dubbed the contrasting
strategies of the two main protagonists plying the internal German routes from Berlin – estimated to be worth £15–20 million in annual revenues – the
Dinner oder Düsen? ("Dinner or Jet?") battle.) Henceforth, the airline marketed these services as
Super Silver Star. The introduction of Pan Am's 727s to the Berlin market represented a major step change because of the aircraft's ability to carry more passengers than any other contemporary aircraft type used by scheduled carriers in the short-haul Berlin market, and its ability to take off from and land on Tempelhof's short runways with a full commercial payload as only light fuel loads were required on the short internal German services. Compared with BEA, Pan Am's 727s carried 20% more passengers than the British carrier's Comet 4Bs and up to 2½ times as many passengers as the latter's Viscounts. in 1969. From August 1968, BEA supplemented its Tempelhof-based Viscount fleet with de Havilland Comet 4B series jetliners. This measure was therefore only a stopgap until most of BEA's Berlin fleet was equipped with 97-seat, single-class BAC One-Eleven 500s. It began replacing the airline's Berlin-based Viscounts from 17 November 1968. By 1971, BEA carried 2 million passengers each year on its Berlin routes. 1971 was also the year the airline's last Berlin-based Viscount departed the city.
East Germany's relaxation of border controls affecting all surface transport modes between West Berlin and West Germany across its territory from 1972 onwards resulted in a decline of scheduled internal German air traffic from/to West Berlin. This was further compounded by the
economic downturn in the wake of the
1973 oil crisis. The resulting fare increases that were intended to recover higher operating costs caused by steeply rising
jet fuel prices led to a further drop in demand. This in turn resulted in a major contraction of BEA's – and subsequently British Airways' – (as well as Pan Am's) internal German operations, necessitating a reduction in the Berlin-based fleet and workforce in an attempt to contain growing losses these once profitable routes generated by the mid-1970s.
Subsidiaries BEA Helicopters G-AJHW on 16 May 1953. The airline carried out trials with its Helicopter Experiment Unit, operating mail services in
East Anglia during 1948 and a passenger service from Cardiff via
Wrexham to
Liverpool (Speke) Airport in 1950. In 1952, BEA established a base at Gatwick on the site of the airport's old Beehive terminal. On 1 January 1964, BEA formed BEA Helicopters as a separate helicopter subsidiary, which established its administrative headquarters and engineering base at Gatwick. Following retirement of BEA's Dragon Rapides, BEA Helicopters took over the scheduled service between Land's End and the Isles of Scilly on 2 May 1964. On 1 September of that year, the service transferred from
Land's End St Just airfield to a new, purpose-built
heliport at Penzance.
BEA Airtours Comet 4B in basic BEA "Speedjack" livery at
Pisa,
Italy, in 1973. On 24 April 1969, BEA formed BEA Airtours as a wholly owned, non-IATA subsidiary to provide it with a low-cost platform to participate in the then rapidly growing IT holiday flights market, which until then had been the exclusive domain of the independent airlines. On that day, BEA Airtours' first revenue flight departed Gatwick for
Palma de Mallorca.
British Air Services Following establishment of British Air Services as BEA's new holding company for its two loss-making regional airline subsidiaries, BKS Air Transport and Cambrian Airways, in March 1970, the corporation acquired a two-thirds majority shareholding in British Air Services in the autumn of that year to ensure its regional partners' survival. While this arrangement transferred overall control of
BKS and Cambrian to BEA, it left the former's identities and local managements in place. This effectively gave BEA the final say in all major policy matters and delegated the day-to-day running of the two smaller airlines to their respective managements.
Cyprus Airways Cyprus Airways was established on 24 September 1947 as a joint venture between BEA, the British
Colonial Government of Cyprus and private interests. Operations commenced on 18 April 1948 with three
Douglas DC-3 aircraft. The aeroplanes, which carried 21 passengers each, flew on a route network centred on
Nicosia Airport that included Rome, London (via Athens), Beirut, Athens, Cairo, Istanbul, and Haifa. During the next three years the airline purchased an additional three DC-3 aircraft and introduced services to
Alexandria,
Amman,
Bahrain,
Khartoum (via Haifa) and
Lod. In 1952, BEA took over the Cyprus Airways service to London with an
Airspeed Ambassador, which featured a
pressurized cabin that allowed nonstop routing avoiding a stopover in Athens. On 18 April 1953, BEA began using its newly delivered
Vickers Viscount 701 on their scheduled service from London to Rome and Athens. The continuing sector from Athens to Nicosia was operated by BEA under charter to Cyprus Airways. This route from London to Nicosia was the world's first regular turboprop service. In September 1957, with the political situation deteriorating in Cyprus, Cyprus Airways entered into a five-year agreement with BEA for the latter to operate services on its behalf. As a result, BEA took over the operation of all Cyprus Airways services from 26 January 1958. Following independence for Cyprus in 1960, the government of newly independent island became the majority shareholder in Cyprus Airways, with a 53.2 per cent holding, while BEA's stake was reduced to 22.7 per cent. Private individuals held the rest. Thereafter, Cypriot nationals began to be hired and trained for the flight crews, which had previously been made up of British expatriates from BEA. Cyprus Airways still relied on BEA for aircraft and in 1961 BEA began introducing Comet 4B jets on all Cyprus Airways routes through a joint aircraft pool arrangement that included Greece's Olympic Airways. On 5 April 1960, BEA introduced
de Havilland Comet 4B aircraft on the
Nicosia,
Athens,
Rome, and
London routes. With the introduction of the Comets, Cyprus Airways became the first airline in the
Middle East to have jet airplanes. The Comets flew in the BEA livery, but had the Cyprus Airways logo and title above their doors. In 1965, Cyprus began leasing its own Viscounts from BEA for regional routes. The Comet and Viscount aircraft were replaced with five Trident jets, three of them acquired from BEA. The first
Hawker Siddeley Trident jet was introduced in September 1969. Cyprus also leased a BAC 1–11. The faster planes allowed more European trade centres (Frankfurt, Manchester, Brussels, and Paris) to be added to the timetable. British Airways finally divested itself of its former BEA stake in Cyprus Airways in 1981, selling its shares to the Government of Cyprus. ==Aircraft operated==