British Airways has brought together its four heritage liveried aircraft which were repainted to mark the airline’s centenary this year, alongside an A319 in the current Chatham Dockyard livery, to capture a rare image of some of the airline’s most iconic designs together. Alex Cruz, British Airways’ Chairman, and CEO said: “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 travelers 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.” SEE our tribute to Concorde To capture the photo, the four heritage aircraft, which were in scheduled downtime and parked at the airline’s engineering base, were lined up alongside an aircraft with the current Chatham Dockyard design. In its centenary year, British Airways is hosting a range of activities and events. As well as looking back, the British Airways is also hosting BA 2119 - a programme, which will lead the debate on the future of flying and explore the future of sustainable aviation fuels, the aviation careers of the future and the customer experience of the future. How British Airways, which only formed as a company after the merger in 1974,  comes to celebrate its 100^thanniversary in 2019 is convoluted. The UK flag carrier is celebrating its beginnings as the August 25, 1919 launch of regular flights across the English Channel by a small airline called Aircraft Transport and Travel.

AT&T launched the world’s first scheduled international service by flying between Hounslow, Middlesex, and Paris carrying just one passenger. It only operated for a year before going bankrupt but some of its assets were later used to start Daimler Airway. A series of mergers saw Daimler folded into Imperial Airways in 1924 and this was later incorporated into BOAC at the start of World War II.