British Airways facts for kids

British Airways aircraft at London Heathrow Airport in the early 1980s.

British Airways (sometimes known as just "BA") is the United Kingdom's largest airline, and is the UK's flag carrier. It was formed in 1974 when the UK's two government owned airlines, the British Oversea Airways Corporation and British European Airways were joined together. It is now owned by a company called International Airlines Group, which also owns Iberia Airlines, and is one of the largest companies in the United Kingdom. It operates domestic flights within the UK as well as international flights to Europe and the rest of the world.

British Airways has a large fleet of aircraft, including planes built by Boeing, Airbus and Embraer. They are now operating the Airbus A380, the largest passenger plane ever built. For a while during the 1990s British Airways' planes had tails each painted in a design to symbolise a country of the world. This was called the World Tails scheme, and it wasn't very popular. However, they now have tails that are based on the Union Jack.

British Airways also flew the Concorde, one of only two aircraft types that could fly faster than the speed of sound. However, this plane was taken out of the fleet in 2003 after the crash of Air France flight 4590, after being used for 27 years.

Heathrow Airport

Terminal 5 in July 2006. Here, it is still being built; now it is open.

British Airways has its own terminal at Heathrow Airport in London called Terminal 5 or T5. It was opened on 14 March 2008 by the UK monarch Queen Elizabeth II, and cost £4.3 billion ($6.2 billion) to build. It is between Heathrow's two runways- 27L/09R and 27R/09L. The site is 260 hectares in size, and has its own train station. It also has over 100 shops and restaurants.

The only airlines to use terminal 5 are British Airways and Iberia Airlines. Not all of British Airways' flights go through T5. Some flights, such as those to Thailand, Singapore and Sydney in Australia depart from Terminal 3.

In 2011, 26.3 million passengers and 184,616 flights departed from Terminal 5.

Other Airports

British Airways also has many flights from Gatwick Airport, and London City Airport which are both in London. These two airports, along with Heathrow Airport, are British Airways' main airports.

Aircraft

British Airways Airbus A319-100 (G-EUPO)

British Airways has a fleet of 253 planes:

Pictures

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  A British Airways A318.

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  A British Airways A319.

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  A British Airways A320.

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  A British Airways A380.

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  A British Airways 737.

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  A British Airways 747.

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  A British Airways 757.

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  A British Airways 767.

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  A British Airways 777.

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  A British Airways 787.

BA CityFlier and OpenSkies

British Airways also owns two other smaller airlines called BA CityFlier and OpenSkies, which run different services than the large airline.

BA CityFlier runs flights from London City Airport to other major cities in the UK (such as Edinburgh and Glasgow) and the rest of Europe (such as Nice in France, Dublin in Ireland, Frankfurt in Germany, Madrid in Spain and Zurich in Switzerland). It began flying passengers in March 2007. It is also a much smaller airline than British Airways, and has 14 Embraer E-Jet family planes.

OpenSkies in an even smaller airline with only two aircraft- old Boeing 757s from that used to belong to British Airways. At the moment, the airline only flies to/from Paris in France and New York in the United States of America. The two Boeing 757s have enough room for 110 passengers, and have 20 Business class seats, 24 Premium Economy class seats and 66 Economy class seats.

Oneworld

British Airways aircraft in Oneworld livery.

British Airways is a member of Oneworld. Oneworld is a partnership between 11 airlines: American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia Airlines, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Royal Jordanian Airlines, S7 Airlines and British Airways. Smaller airlines that are owned by these 12 member airlines are also part of Oneworld- for example BA CityFlier. There is one exception- OpenSkies however is not part of Oneworld.

Being part of Oneworld means that the airlines sell tickets for their own flights as well as for other members' flights (for example, British Airways sells tickets for American Airlines flights). This is good for the airlines because the customers can get their tickets in one place and it lets the airlines use flights that they wouldn't normally have. Also, Oneworld has a frequent flier program, where all the separate member airlines' airmiles can be used, so they can be used across all the member airlines. The three levels are Oneworld Ruby (lowest), Oneworld Sapphire (middle) and Oneworld Emerald (highest). It is up to the airlines to decide how many air miles a passenger needs to get rewards from their own scheme. A passenger is awarded one air mile for each mile that they fly with the airline for.

Other facts about British Airways

British Airways Boeing 747-400s at London Heathrow Airport.

• It was the first airline to introduce flat beds in Business Class, although many airlines now have this feature
• It is shown in the James Bond movie series.
• The airline was awarded 'Airline of the Year 2015'
• It still operates more Boeing 747s than any other airline (however with the introduction of the B777 and the A380 that number is predicted to drop)

Images for kids

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  A Boeing 747-100 in BOAC-British Airways transition livery (1976)

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  A British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident in its transitional scheme with BEA livery but with British Airways titles.

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  British Airways' first Concorde at Heathrow Airport, on 15 January 1976.

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  British Airways and Iberia merged in January 2011, forming International Airlines Group, one of the world's largest airlines.

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  Waterside, the head office building of British Airways.

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  An OpenSkies Boeing 757-200 landing at Frankfurt Airport.

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  British Airways' former Airbus A318-100 parked at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. This aircraft operated a special route between London and New York and was equipped with an all-business class configuration (named "Club World London City").

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  British Airways' promotional banner above the check-in desks at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5.

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  Mylius Modern, a custom-made typeface used by British Airways.

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  One of the four retro liveries to celebrate the 100th anniversary of British Airways and its predecessors. This Boeing 747-400 aircraft (registered as G-BNLY) is painted in the Landor Associates design.

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  Current BA aircraft bear Chatham Dockyard Union Flag tail art.

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  The damaged British Airways Flight 38, photographed on 17 January 2008.

See also

In Spanish: British Airways para niños