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Transmission date for BBC ‘fly on the wall’ series on British Airways announced

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The BBC has finally released the transmission dates for ‘A Very British Airline’, a three part fly on the wall series on British Airways.

It will be broadcast on June 2, June 9 and June 16 at 9pm on BBC2.

BA 747 retirement

Filmed over 10 months, it covers various ‘stories’ including the launch of the first A380 flights, the preparations for the Chengdu route (which I am told is a commercial disaster, attracting under 50 passengers at times – and on a 787) and the BA response to a bout of severe weather at JFK.

I was approached by Lion TV last year about this series as they wanted to slot in a series of ‘talking head’ pieces from passengers and industry observers.  I put some people I know forward for filming – it will be interesting to see if they make the final cut.


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Comments (13)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Nick says:

    It’ll be interesting to see how much editorial control BA/IAG may have had in the content. I’d doubt they’d have agreed to something like this without any say in to what is included in the programmes.

    • TimS says:

      With some of the things going on behind the scenes at BA over that period i expect they had significant editorial control.

      I expect they will also have blocked access to certain divisions of BA/IAG from the outset.

    • Rob says:

      BA put out a press release saying how much they were looking forward to everyone seeing what a good ship they run (to paraphrase) so I imagine the answer is ‘high’.

      • Alan says:

        No coverage of the engine cowling that flew off I suspect then 😛

        • TimS says:

          Unlikely, but there will be whole divisions of BA that will have been off-limits to the producers i expect.

          Access will have been carefully cherry-picked by BA as a condition of the informercial, sorry, “documentary” based on what they saw to be commercially advantageous a year or so ago.

  • Dave says:

    The week after is a fly in the food series on Baxter Storey.

  • Kevinz says:

    was the lauch a disaster? the Chengdu route. I was on the Chengdu flight during X’mas time, and return after new year. I was surprised to see the business class seats full packed with paying Chinese passengers. It must be doing well, as BA increased frequency too.

    • Rob says:

      Let’s just say that I was being very generous when I said some loads were 50. It is worse.

  • Sam Sienna says:

    I wouldn’t imagine Willie Walsh has built IAG up into the most valuable airline company in Europe by launching routes that don’t make commercial sense ?

    • Rob says:

      Subsidy ….?

      A lot of BA routes are underwritten. If Glaxo or BP want BA to fly somewhere, BA does it – as long as the company guarantees a minimum level of business.

      Governments can do the same.

    • TimS says:

      There are plenty loss-making routes that BA continue to fly.

      I am aware of one route where BA have allegedly spoken to a competitor and suggested that if the competitor wanted to increase frequency BA would willingly step aside.

  • gnarlyoldgoatdude says:

    Wasn’t there a fire/evacuation at waterside during the filming? That could be fun.

  • andy stock says:

    How is the Leeds route doing, to me it is a complete waste of slots and would rather they increase flights to Prague / Budapest as my recent flights on BA to these destinations have been rammed full!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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