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BRITISH AIRWAYS MARKS CENTENARY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND WITH CUSTOMERS FOLLOWING YEAR OF CELEBRATION

This Sunday, 25 August 2019, marks British Airways’ 100th birthday and the airline is marking its centenary by celebrating with customers.

Alex Cruz, British Airways’ Chairman and CEO, said: “We have had a fabulous year so far marking our centenary and thanking our customers for making us the airline we are today – we wouldn’t be here without their pioneering spirits and sense of adventure.

“From that first customer who flew from Hounslow Heath to Paris on 25 August 1919 in a single-engine De Havilland DH4A to the millions who choose to fly with us every year on more than 800 flights a day to 200 destinations around the globe – we thank them all. Our customers truly enable us to bring Britain to the world and the world to Britain and we look forward to serving them for the next 100 years.”

Back on that day in 1919, the very first international flight by the airline’s predecessor, Air Transport & Travel (AT&T) operated from Hounslow Heath, very near to what we now know as London Heathrow, to Paris. To commemorate that first service the aircraft that was painted in the original British European Airways’ (BEA) livery earlier this year will operate the BA314 service to Paris Charles de Gaulle on Sunday, before flying around the airline’s UK network throughout the rest of the bank holiday weekend.

As the Principal Partner to Twickenham Stadium and the Official Airline Partner to England Rugby, the airline is going all-out for the England vs Ireland match on August 24, kicking off with the airline’s choir performing the national anthems on the pitch. Special centenary edition drinks including Speedbird 100, a Brewdog IPA, and Hattingley Valley English sparkling wine, will be served at selected venues around the stadium, and fans will be in with a chance at half-time to win one million Avios, enough to reach Sydney twice in the airline’s First cabin.

Customers flying with British Airways from around the world this weekend will be greeted with bunting and decorations. Those on short-haul services will be treated to Hotel Chocolat giveaways, while on long-haul flights customers will be served menus from Michelin-starred British chef, Tom Kerridge, featuring great British flavours that work at altitude. Those in First and Club World can also collect and enjoy special edition centenary amenity kits.

Younger flyers travelling through Heathrow Terminal 5 and Gatwick on selected dates this summer can pick up a limited-edition backpack by personalised children’s gift brand, My 1st Years, and will be given a special branded luggage tag and a pin badge in their Skyflyers Packs.

And these are just the latest activities that have been taking place throughout 2019 to mark the centenary.  

In February, the airline launched its heart-warming centenary advertising campaignfeaturing a love letter to Britain brought to life by some of Britain’s biggest names, including Gary Oldman, Olivia Colman and Riz Ahmed, sporting stars Anthony Joshua, Ellie Simmonds, Nicola Adams, Chris Robshaw, Harriet Millar-Mills and Anthony Watson, musical icons Paloma Faith and The Kingdom Choir (with a cameo from David Bowie). Contemporary artist Grayson Perry, anthropologist Jane Goodall, chef and TV presenter Matilda Ramsay and Helen Sharman, the first Briton in space also all featured and were brought together as leaders in their respective fields. The campaign has continued throughout the year with more faces joining the BA100 who represent the best of business, environment, fashion, film and entertainment, food and drink, music, art and design, philanthropy, science and technology, and sport.

The airline also launched its future-facing programme, BA 2119, which has been leading the debate on the future of flying, exploring the future of sustainable aviation fuels and the customer experience of the future.

The first element, BA 2119: Future of Fuels programme, in collaboration with Cranfield University, was launched by then Aviation Minister Baroness Sugg on 30 November 2018 and called on British universities to develop a new or different pathway to achieve global leadership in the development of sustainable aviation fuels.  The airline posed the question of how to power a long-haul flight for at least five hours and produce zero CO2 emissions.

The winner, University College London, was unveiled in May and proposed a solution that would turn household waste into jet fuel, building plants to convert the waste near landfill sites across the country. The team estimated that this could deliver 3.5 million tonnes of jet fuel annually by 2050, resulting in negative emissions and the equivalent of taking more than 5.5 million cars off the road every year.

The next section, BA 2119: Flight of the Future saw the airline commission research into the future customer experience with the leading data-led trends agency Foresight Factory. The report, which surveyed 13,000 consumers across ten countries and consulted with leading sector experts and futurologists delivered a clear picture of what flying will look like in 20, 40, 60 and even 100 years identifying a future with hyper-personalisation, immersive virtual realities, 3D printed health solutions, modular aircraft connected to city infrastructure, hypersonic flying and the rise of super-slow ”flight cruises”.

The concepts were then brought to life by post-graduate students at the Royal College of Art in a special exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London which continues until August 26.  The exhibition included a one-of-a kind, full motion, virtual reality experience, Fly, which enabled visitors to become a time-travelling pilot, from the earliest imaginings of Leonard da Vinci and his ornithopter, to the Wright Brothers’ success on Kitty Hawk, to that first inaugural passenger flight to Paris, through Concorde, the brand new A350 and the imagined flight of future.

Her Majesty The Queen visited British Airways’ headquarters in June to meet colleagues and explore airline’s museum, The Speedbird Centre, where she was shown artefacts and memorabilia relating to her own many historic journeys with the airline throughout her reign.

And that same archive collection, plus more never-before-seen memories from British Airways’ history were unveiled to the public through the Centenary Archive Collection. The interactive year-by-year timeline illustrates how British Airways became one of the world’s leading airlines and is hosted on the airline’s dedicated Centenary site – ba.com/100/centenary-collection.

The airline also launched four heritage aircraft earlier this year, starting with the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) livery on a Boeing 747, which flew between 1952 and 1974. It was followed the airline’s British European Airways (BEA) heritage on an A319, which flew predominantly on European and domestic routes between 1959 and 1968. A final two B747s received the Negus livery (1974 to 1980) and Landor(1984 to 1997). The BOAC aircraft also flew with the Red Arrows at the Royal International Air Tattoo in Gloucestershire.

Throughout the year the airline has formed partnerships with other British brands including Scottish craft brewers, Brewdog, who created a transatlantic IPA known as Speedbird 100 for customers and Fife-based distillers, InchDairnie, which created a limited-edition whisky. British Airways has also teamed up with Marmite, who have created a centenary branded jar, launched an English Sparkling Wine from Hampshire-based vineyard, Hattingley Valley and partnered with British luxury watch makers, Bremont, on a Concorde edition known as The Supersonic. Centenary editions have also been available to buy through in-flight retail.

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