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British Airways has unveiled its fourth and final retrospective livery for its centenary year.
One of its Boeing 747 aircraft, registration G-CIVB, has been painted in the Negus & Negus livery.
The aircraft returned to London Heathrow this morning, Thursday 21 March 2019, having been repainted in Dublin over the past week.
“The new name in aviation”
The original livery was designed by the design agency Negus and Negus.
The livery was intended to combine elements of both BEA and BOAC’s identity. It featured BEA’s signature red and a quarter Union Jack on the tail fin to reflect BEA. The blue and white fuselage and the small Speedbird logo was intended to reflect BOAC. This was to appeal not only to the respective customers of BEA and BOAC, but also their staff.
At the same time, the design was intended to be bold enough to make the new (for BEA & BOAC passengers) British Airways name stand out.
The livery first came into effect in September 1973 when the British Airways name was adopted in advance of the formal merger of BEA and BOAC in April 1974. The first aircraft to bear the new livery was a BOAC Boeing 707. It took seven years to fully repaint all BEA and BOAC aircraft, with some aircraft carrying hybrid liveries for many years.
“British airways” was in June 1980 abbreviated to just “British”. However, this was considered outside of the UK to be overtly nationalistic in tone. The quarter Union Jack on the tail fin was of course retained for the Landor livery introduced in 1984.
This Boeing 747 aircraft will retain this livery until its retirement in 2022. It’s due to fly to Cape Town under flight BA43 today. There’s no way of predicting exactly on which routes this aircraft will operate. However, as a 52 Club World seat aircraft, it will also regularly operate from London Heathrow Terminals 3 & 5 primarily on routes such as Accra, Denver, Miami, Phoenix and Vancouver.
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