British Airways' Chatham Dockyard Aircraft Livery

London Air Travel » British Airways » BA100 » BA100: 70. The Chatham Dockyard Livery

British Airways Airbus A350-1000 Aircraft Wingtip (Image Credit: British Airways)

This article was published in 2019 in a series on the history of British Airways and its predecessors Imperial Airways, BOAC and BEA. You can browse all 100 stories in number order, by theme or by decade.

Many have been updated since first published.

The Chatham Dockyard livery was first introduced in June 1997 as part of a now infamous rebranding of BA known as “Project Utopia”.

It takes its name from the Historic Dockyard, Chatham, Kent. The tail fin bears a red, white and blue interpretation of the Union Flag, the official name of the national flag for the United Kingdom.

Based on the original flag used by Admiral Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the Chatham Dockyard livery was created for BA by the Admiral’s Original Flag Loft factory in Chatham which had made flags for more than 400 years. The factory has since closed.

Originally, only Concorde was to feature the Chatham Dockyard livery with all other aircraft being painted in up to 50 different tail fins featuring images developed by artists from around the world.

However, all aircraft were to bear a new BA logo and three dimensional speedmarque towards the nose of the aircraft.

British Airways Concorde G-BOAB London Heathrow (Image Credit: London Air Travel)

British Airways Concorde G-BOAB London Heathrow (Image Credit: London Air Travel)

Following an adverse public reaction to the World Images tail fins, BA initially decided to paint half of aircraft in the Chatham Dockyard livery, before deciding to withdraw the World Images tail fins altogether.

British Airways Boeing 747's at London Heathrow — British Airways Boeing 747’s at London Heathrow (Image Credit: NewsCast/British Airways)

20 years on, the Chatham Dockyard livery has remained to this day, albeit with slight modifications. All aircraft are painted in bright white rather than pearl white (Concorde always had to be painted bright white for technical reasons) and many aircraft now feature the BA “To Fly. To Serve.” crest.

BA’s new Airbus A350-1000 aircraft also feature the Chatham Dockyard flag on its wing-tips.

You can continue reading our 100 part series on the history of British Airways and its predecessor airlines Imperial Airways, BOAC and BEA in numerical order, by theme or by decade.

If you would like to receive all future articles published by London Air Travel directly by e-mail, then enter your e-mail address below: