London Air Travel » British Airways » BA100 »
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.
On 1 May 1927, Imperial Airways introduced its “Silver Wing” service on the London – Paris route.
This is considered as the first ever luxury in flight service and achieved recognition worldwide at the time.
It was operated with a dedicated fleet of three Armstrong Whitworth Argosy three engined aircraft, named the City of Birmingham, City of Glasgow and City of Wellington.
The aircraft were painted silver externally and also had silver and grey cabin interiors. New more comfortable seating with shoulder and head rests was also installed.
You can see footage of the Imperial Airways City of Glasgow aircraft in flight in this silent film above.
The aim of the service was to make air travel more popular and to compete against the Golden Arrow service on Continental Railways. The flight left London at noon each day. On the two hour and 30 minute flight a steward would serve a four course lunch and offer a bar service to the 20 passengers on board the aircraft.
The Silver Wing service was also offered on weekend pleasure flights over London which departed Croydon on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
The concept of the “Silver Wing” service was also adopted by the successor airline British European Airlines.
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:
© Copyright London Air Travel 2019
One thought on “BA100: 27. Imperial Airways’ Silver Wing Service”