#BA100 – the story of the first British Airways flight, as it appeared in The Times of 1919

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• Lady London says:

  31 Aug31 August 13:10

  Just lovely.

• David Smith says:

  31 Aug31 August 13:32

  A one-hour turnaround at an out-station is pretty good for back then.

• Definitas says:

  31 Aug31 August 13:42

  OT: Has anyone flown LHR-ORD via DUB and return with Aer Lingus? How difficult (or easy) is the transfer & immigration process (with a toddler)? Thanks in advance for any advice

  • Joe says:

    31 Aug31 August 14:14

    It is great, did it a few years ago (we were travelling with some friends who would have had to connect somewhere anyway so all met in Dublin. We didn’t have a toddler then (we do now and travel regularly) and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

  • Tim Hewson says:

    31 Aug31 August 14:16

    Easier than doing it in ORD.

  • Alex Sm says:

    1 Sep1 September 00:20

    this comment looks a bit out of place here

• Bill B says:

  31 Aug31 August 15:25

  In a related story on page 11 of the same issue of The Times:
  “The Handley Page machine left London for Paris about 9 o’clock yesterday morming with ten journalists as passengers and reached Paris safely, but was unable to return because of incomplete arrangements for petrol supply. It is to come back to London to-day.”

  “Yesterday’s experience will confirm the confidence of believers in flying as one of the main transport services of the future. One reason for their confidence is that these flights to Paris–though they were the opening of the public service–were by no means the first attempts to maintain regular communication by air between Paris and London. While the Peace Conference was sitting British Ministers, or some of them at least, made a practice of flying to Paris and of returning by the air. Occasional trouble there must be. Engine failure is the most probable cause of it, and the possibility of engine failure has not yet been eliminated. But a high degree of reliability in air communications over comparatively short distances has been attained, and the transport aeroplane has proved its value already.”

  The story concluded with this:
  “Within a few years air traffic between the British Isles and the Continent will be a normal part of everyday life. Civil aviation is about to prove its usefulness and its necessity; and already the Government’s insistence on the Service side of the Air Organization–accompanied by a practical boycott of the Civil side so far as funds go–is an evident anachronism. The relative importance, in the official view, of civilian and of Service aviation has to be readjusted radically; and the sooner the Government reconcile themselves to this self-evident, if for some recondite reason unpalatable truth, the better. So far the official attitude towards the Civil Aviation Department has been one of condescension embittered by parsimony. Parliament is not sitting, and most of the rulers of the country are on holiday. But this is the time when the permanent Estimates for the Air Organization should be beginning to take shape. By their, fruits the Government will be judged.”

  • Rob says:

    31 Aug31 August 15:44

    Thanks!

  • Lady London says:

    31 Aug31 August 16:36

    ‘condescension [of thé British Government]embittered by parsimony’.

    So many other cases.

    How the British government ever got away with refusing to uprate pensions earned in Britain, but where pensioners had now taken their potentially expensive health problems with them when they retired abroad after a full working life in Britain earning their pension, is beyond me.

    ‘perfidy and parsimony’ perhaps those are Great British strengths. The French might be better at condescension!

    #endofsummerholidays

    • Julian says:

      31 Aug31 August 17:05

      I think the basic concept on freezing pensions for those who emigrate has always been that you will no longer be paying UK VAT and quite possibly also some or a lot of income tax plus council tax etc on all of the pension you receive in the UK but if you receive it in another country then none of that money goes back in to the UK economy.

      I’m not saying I agree with the concept as these pensioners have paid just as much in to the scheme and it ought to be up to the British Government to run the country in such a way as to make its citizens want to keep their permanent residence here in Blighty during retirement rather than heading off to some other more sunny part of the world………….

      • Shoestring says:

        31 Aug31 August 20:03

        Complete rubbish, Julian.

        It’s always been about cutting off/ reducing pension payments to people living abroad who will no longer vote for you.

    • Alex Sm says:

      31 Aug31 August 19:39

      It’s all due to the bad climate, as per the article

• Julian says:

  31 Aug31 August 16:59

  Rob,

  Given your own very high powered and successful business wife I’m quite surprised to find you willing to state publicly that the lack of any women being involved in flying in those days was a point of enjoyment.

  I would have thought that in view of the most feminists it would in fact have been another of the many heinous outrages perpetrated in the past by The Patriarchy that it is entirely right and proper that the women of today have taken have major strides to begin to redress eg with a significant and increasing number of female commercial pilots and also now vast numbers of male flight attendants (albeit if also heavily and disproportionately skewed in favour of males who tend to find greater identity validity in an inherently submissive and service based role).

  Also isn’t enjoying the minutiae of aviation history in this way a fairly sure sign of aviation geekery? And I could have sworn you had previously have assured us in the past that you are not in any way an aviation enthusiast, although to be fair I would say that like the substantial majority of regular HfPers that you are in fact most definitely a geek, even though Rhys would appear to quite possibly be more of a natural marketing and sales type of person.

  • Rob says:

    31 Aug31 August 17:07

    I didn’t mean ‘enjoy’ in that sense, ever so surprisingly ….

    I know absolutely nothing about aircraft but in Rhys I now have one of the leading avgeeks in the country 🙂

    I do like social history, which is why we do the occasional piece on ye olde world of aviation.

    • Julian says:

      31 Aug31 August 22:27

      Rhys seems unusually highly socialised and charming to me for a proper fullgoing geek 🙂

      I think he probably comes at it more the other way round that aviation is linked with exotic far away destinations and the world’s finest hotels (i.e. dream world lifestyle) rather than thinking excitedly of the registration number of every single plane he has travelled on and also marking off every engine single configuration of every sub species of Boeing 737 aircraft that he has ever travelled on as the true anorak type geek tends to.

      But of course I could be wrong about that……….

• AndyGWP says:

  31 Aug31 August 19:36

  OT but BA100 related… Flew long haul yesterday and didn’t get the Kerridge menu that was supposed to be on offer in August (wasn’t it?)

  Bit disappointed :/

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