British Airways

The corporate lineage of British Airways goes back to five airlines established in the United Kingdom between 1916 and 1922. The first of these, Aircraft Transport & Travel (AT&T), began the world's first daily international commercial air service from London to Paris on 25 August 1919. The five airlines merged in 1924 and several other airlines were established and merged during the 1930s and 1940s. The mergers and acquisitions resulted in two state-owned airlines, the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), formed in 1939, and British European Airways (BEA), formed in 1947.

Proposals to establish a single British airline, combining the assets of the BOAC and BEA, were first raised in 1953 as a result of difficulties in attempts by BOAC and BEA to negotiate air rights through the British colony of Cyprus. Increasingly BOAC was protesting that BEA was using its subsidiary Cyprus Airways to circumvent an agreement that BEA would not fly routes further east than Cyprus, particularly to the increasingly important oil regions in the Middle East. The chairman of BOAC, Miles Thomas, was in favour of a merger as a potential solution to this disagreement and had backing for the idea from the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, Rab Butler. However, opposition from the Treasury blocked the proposal.

Consequently, it was only following the recommendations of the 1969 Edwards Report that a new British Airways Board, managing both BEA and BOAC, and the two regional British airlines Cambrian Airways based at Cardiff, and Northeast Airlines based at Newcastle upon Tyne, was constituted on 1 April 1972. Although each airline's branding was maintained initially, two years later the British Airways Board unified its branding, effectively establishing British Airways as an airline on 31 March 1974.

Following two years of fierce competition with British Caledonian, the second-largest airline in the United Kingdom at the time, the Government changed its aviation policy in 1976 so that the two carriers would no longer compete on long-haul routes.

British Airways and Air France operated the Concorde, the world's first supersonic aircraft that first carried passengers on 21 January 1976 from London Heathrow to Bahrain. Services to the United States began on 24 May 1976 with a flight to Washington Dulles, and flights to New York JFK followed on 22 September 1977. …

British Airways has a reputation for poor service, including poor treatment by staff, frequent changes to its offerings, and an unwillingness to pay compensation claims. In 2025, the airline was named worst in long-haul flights, based on a customer survey by the consumer group, Which?. Increasingly the firm has focused on its consumers in more expensive classes, opposed to economy flyers. This shift began slowly in 2020, as a result of a corporate redirection, led by current CEO Sean Doyle with a vision to expand the company's premium offerings. The company then announced suddenly in 2025 that they would change their loyalty point system for frequent flyers, inciting public backlash as many customers lost accrued value in points. The company was forced to reverse course on some of its strategic offerings, only for premium customers, after customer complaints.

In recent years, the firm has been noted publicly for its inability to respond to customer requests. During a recent power outage, the company's website stated that no flights were delayed, despite several cancellations occurring with passengers stranded on planes. In May 2025, A BBC journalist was incorrectly boarded on their flight by staff under a different name, causing her return journey to be cancelled. This exposed security failures present in the airline's practices.

The key trends for British Airways are shown below.

On the merger with Iberia, the accounting reference date was changed from 31 March to 31 December; figures below are therefore for the years to 31 March up to 2010, for the nine months to 31 December 2010, and for the years to 31 December thereafter:

In 2020, due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, British Airways had to reduce its 42,000-strong workforce by 12,000 jobs. According to the estimate by IAG, a parent company, it will take the air travel industry several years to return to previous performance and profitability levels.

However, 2022 saw a dramatic increase in travel, and the company now faced a worker shortage, forcing it to cancel more than 1,500 flights. During February 2023, The international airlines group, the owners of British Airways announced that the group has returned to making an annual profit of €1.3 billion for the first time since the pandemic, following a €2.8 billion loss in 2021. …

British Airways Holidays is a UK‑based tour operator providing holiday packages, hotels, car hire and travel experiences under the British Airways brand.

British Airways Holidays established in 1955 as Overseas Air Travel. It was renamed British Airways Holidays in 1991.

In 2024, British Airways Holidays transferred from British Airways to IAG Loyalty, the subsidiary of International Airlines Group responsible for managing the Avios loyalty currency, and Andrew Flintham was appointed to the business replacing the previous MD. The transfer was reported by independent business media in the context of organisational and leadership changes at British Airways Holidays.

British Airways Holidays sells ATOL‑protected flight‑inclusive holidays via ba.com and British Airways contact centres. According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority ATOL licence holder reports, British Airways Holidays ranks among the largest tour operators in the United Kingdom by authorised passenger volume.

The business is integrated with The British Airways Club loyalty programme. British Airways allows members to use Avios as payment or part‑payment on selected British Airways Holidays packages. Changes to the programme in 2025 saw British Airways Holidays bookings contributing to members’ tier status.

As of August 2022, British Airways serves 70 countries, including eight domestic and 27 in the United States.

British Airways co-founded the airline alliance Oneworld in 1999 with airlines American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas.

British Airways has codeshares with the following airlines:

British Airways has Interline agreements with the following airlines:

As of February 2025, the British Airways operates a fleet of 274 aircraft with 42 orders. BA operates a mix of Airbus narrow and wide-body aircraft, Boeing wide-body aircraft, specifically the 777, 787 and Embraer E-Jet family a narrow-body, short- to medium-range, twin-engined regional aircraft airliners, specifically the Embraer E190. In October 2020, British Airways retired its fleet of 747-400 aircraft. It was one of the largest operators of the 747, having previously operated the -100, -200, and -400 aircraft from 1974 (1969 with BOAC).

The airline has its own engineering branch to maintain its aircraft fleet, this includes line maintenance at over 70 airports around the world. Amongst the company's various hangar facilities are its two major maintenance centres at Glasgow and Cardiff Airports.