British Airways: 100 Years in the Sky | British History | Part 2

Introduction to British Airways [Music] over the last century British Airways has become one of our most iconic companies well it was a creme de crem as my mother would say it launched the world's first international flight service it was the start of a new era for the whole of Aviation really the first jet liner it completely revolutionized air travel and the first ever supersonic passenger plane once you'd flown on Concord it was like being a of an exclusive Club but it has also faced very turbulent times I knew it was being bombed because I could smell the cordite me know we just ordinary people on a flight and we just thought they'd let us go her struggle to keep up with the competition I don't care what fair you've got mine is the cheapest and been forced to make tough decisions in order to survive this was not just some nice cuddly British Airline but this was a world leader this is the story of a thoroughly British Airline and its first 100 years in the sky Brit in the late 1960s and70s was an Youth Culture and Technological Advances exciting time of youth culture and dynamic technological advances the hovercraft came into service and we saw man land on the moon this time of change also saw Britain's aviation industry in transition when a new company emerged from the government Le amalgamation of boac and Bea into the modern Airline we know now formed in 1974 it was a tough start for British Airways as different working cultures and thousands of Staff merged into these stormy skies came a The Revolution of Concorde revolution Concord Concord was a project born in 1960s out of a really uh Grand political design to have a a major cooperation between the UK and France something which in these days of brexit post brexit you could hardly imagine 16 of the world's Airlines on the threshold of the supersonic age customers for the angl French Concord the first supersonic airliner in the world it cost the French and British governments over a billion pounds to develop and build the first four aircraft so flights were never going to be cheap you're going to have to be ferociously rich and famous to fly on Concord only a privileged few were allowed behind the security barrier but at least we can see what she looks like in the flesh once you'd flown on Concord it was like being a member of an exclusive Club it was almost like a badge of honor to flown on Concord now up toward the skies the white bird of tomorrow my relationship with Concord started before Concord went into service I was doing a promotion some promotion in the Middle East and I went to this big party and there was a pilot from British Aerospace and a pilot from Aerospace for um we were talking about what they were doing and they were saying well actually what we've done is we've looked for the worst weather in the world and we're going to take Concord out tomorrow and put it through its Paces so that the whole of the the airplane was computers with I think about four seats for people and I honestly don't ask me I don't even know why I said it but I said oh can I come and they went well okay yes if you're up at 3:00 in the morning and you don't mind a bit of turbulence and I found myself on the tarmac at 300 in the morning thinking why am I doing this anyway I did it and it was an extraordinary experience conord such a special aircraft I vividly remember the very first takeoff on Conor which is the the best part really you're going down the runway about 200 M hour and you're going to V2 and you take off this is indeed concord's day we took the most travel sophisticated people in the world on Concord is this to be the image of Concord man sipping champagne 10 Mi above the Earth there was always a little spark in their eye there was always that moment of excitement that you see two Dawns going to New York I mean how can you get bored with that approaching the speed of sound Mac one there was actually a speedometer inside the cabin so there would be that silence you know you would not be serving the main course as it just came up to before Mac 1 and then there would be that little just is just like a hiccup there we are Mac one we are now at the speed of sound and then you were over the sand barrier and then going up to twice the speed of sand cuz it went at twice the speed of sand you're literally on the edge of space apparently when you get up to that sort of level where the sky goes really dark NASA actually calls you you're almost become an astronaut it's quite extraordinary really isn't it so all those passages that went on Concor were actually astronauts I think Concord was such a success in its time because it really pushed the boundaries of engineering it really captured people's imagination it was different there was nothing out there like Concord and there has been nothing since we often had people who had saved and saved and saved and just for that one flight they would fly out to New York on Concord and then come back on on a jumbo Conor was above first class you know it wasn't you know it wasn't first class it was Conor class and it was A Cut Above everything really there was no better way to fly throughout the 1970s and 80s that level of luxury continued in Ba's subsonic Fleet in business and first class as the company worked hard to be first choice in high class air travel flying was something which was done by the elite it was s of expensive but it was aimed at a luxury Market mostly for business travel the passengers were made to feel very special we knew our passengers by name they were greeted because maybe there were only six or eight first class passengers um the food was delicious by any I mean still and when you think how oldfashioned the ovens were in those days we had a a choice of uh something like you know the best steak or or or grous or pheasant or something like that wonderful wines and desserts I mean it doesn't compare with buying a sandwich on board on a a locost Island today that's for sure the stewards and stewardesses would be serving Silver Service almost at the seats on the plane there is this idea that if you're prepared to spin we are going to give you a great great treat and my goodness people are very well looked after as well they might be the amount that they're paying ba dazzled the public with Concord but the company was struggling financially it saw a large drop in passenger numbers due to the global economic recession it needed a bold new idea to maintain its dominance on the world [Music] Financial Struggles and Innovations stage in the 19 70s and 80s British Airways was struggling financially soaring costs due to increasing oil prices as well as a worldwide recession hit passenger numbers and profits hard as a government-owned company it was left to the taxpayer to keep it flying ba needed an exciting and Innovative way of building passenger numbers so they launched a revolutionary new service Europe's first walk-on no reservation pay onboard flight the shuttle at Heath row a British Airways Triton starts a new popular service to the north the first of February 1975 it was a revolutionary day you decided in a hurry to make a trip to Glasgow and back no problem just walk in buy your ticket and go it's as simple as that it was going to be quite expensive £26 one way I seem to recall so um a fortune by today standards but people loved it passengers have the option of paying for their seats through a travel agent or at the airport with cash check or credit card no need to book your seat is guaranteed that means if the scheduled plane is full another will be provided immediately never before had air travel been so accessible passengers were put on a backup plane if the first was full not only one aircraft it could be maybe even five or six backup aircraft it's hard to believe today because Airlines don't just have aircraft slushing around nor are the slots available to fly them first flighters receive a momento of the occasion in fact it became like a bus service is quite remarkable they had a a the steward would come around and take your money and give you a ticket you know it's like you know on the buses really was quite quite extraordinary really you could fly to Manchester in half an hour you could get up to glasgo or edinb bar or abedine in 45 minutes maybe an hour and a lot of business people took the advantage of that shuttle is what you put into it the shuttle flew for nearly 20 years but eventually the company couldn't make the numbers work it just wasn't coste effective for BA to run so many backup planes and the service ended one thing the airline could rely Evolution of Cabin Crew Standards on though was its Army of cabin crew Ros Hanby joined their ranks in the 1970s we had a 10-year contract or 36 years old whichever came first and we were not allowed to fly past that age because we were no longer considered air hostess material or we were not considered to look like air hostess material we were hold in if we got too fat we weren't allowed to get married but in fact some air hostess did get married and then they wore their wedding and they'd wear it on a chain around their neck and we were told when we sat down that you had to keep your knees together and your your your legs over slightly to one side and when you look at the air hostess photographs in that era all the little legs were all going in that or that direction cabin crew were expected to look the part and glamour was essential we would like to present a new uniform designed especially for you it will be worn by all British Airways female cabin crew and uniformed grand staff you're measured up for your uniform and you just feel like the bee knees and I was beside myself top stitching is featured and the dress can be worn with or without a belt like the dress the blouse is woven polyester which not only looks but feels like Silk I remember it's embarrassing to admit now that I actually got on a bus I wasn't going anywhere special I just had to get on a bus and show everyone I had to show off my new uniform although the code is sh proof something else is needed for those sudden downpours that can occur in Singapore or Manchester so there's a dark blue cotton backed shiny PVC raincoat we started in economy as rookies there were three stewards and three stewardesses uh and they were called a lady b lady and C lady the a lady was in first class and B and C were in economy um so you graduated to being an a lady and you went back to the school to do a little learn a few refinements I imagine it's very important to know one's individual role and the role of one's colleagues in order to achieve the continuity of service I mean in many ways it sounds rather strange in Old Fashion but in many ways being an air hostess was like a finishing school for a lot of quite Posh Ladies as well as carrying passengers airline travel also carried with it a risk in the fast moving world of jet travel accidents could and did tragically happen British Airways is proud of its safety record but in 1976 it would be dealt a devastating blow [Music] on the 10th of September a British Airways flight with 63 passengers and crew on board left London Bound for Istanbul when tragedy struck as it entered what was then Yugoslavian airspace the ba plane collided with another aircraft killing all 176 people on board the Jets the subsequent investigation ruled that it was the fault of the Zagreb air traffic controllers who had failed to follow procedure correctly valuable safety lessons were learned in the wake of the collision and new guidelines were rolled out across the aviation [Music] Laker Airways and the Budget Airlines Revolution industry by the mid 1970s ba had the largest rout Network in the world flying to 149 cities and the company basically had a monopoly over Long Haul travel in the UK but its cozy world was rattled when a new Airline took to the transatlantic skies in 1977 owned by flamboyant businessman Freddy Laker who had a radical strategy I don't care what fair you've got mine is the cheapest Freddy Laker really was uh someone who was able to play on his personality you he'd been a pilot himself he was an absolute Aviation Enthusiast and he saw a CH to come in and uh shake up the status quo don't you want me to he was able to say I'm going to offer you a cheap Fair uh exciting sexy sounding Airline Sky Train on a brand new dc10 aircraft he'd be there with photos of him standing in front of his dc10 plane with his name emblazened across the engine on the tail Freddy Laker saw himself as David to Ba's Goliath and wanted to democratize air travel which he viewed as being far too elst he saw that there was a need for a budget No Frills Airline where people just buy the ticket and get on he was opening up a new market for travel with Lakers Sky Train fairs roughly half those of British Airways people couldn't get enough of these cheap seats even queuing for days for a standby ticket Laker Airlines were actually turning customers away Laker is for the moment at least still the cheapest airline across the Atlantic and while the others are fighting to fill seats Lakers cheap fairs have met fully booked planes to the states for at least the next 5 days I I mean I can remember planes being absolutely absolutely choc block full and and and fairs going right down and I think it gave everyone a fright I'm very pleased with Lakers at least what he's done in the states as far as uh bring the price and flights down I think it was a time when people wanted to travel and they didn't feel that it was just only for the exclusive few but that actually everyone had the right to travel all the world and you didn't have to be a member of the exclusive Club Freddy Laker overnight became a champion of the people because he had personally democratized air travel across the Atlantic but Lakers price strategy was struggling to cover his Airlines costs the sky Train was about to hip turbulence just three words told British readers the bad news Freddy Laker had pushed ahead with his expansion plans buying more new aircraft and all of it on credit finally the Bubble Burst when the bank said enough is enough even know Sky Train was going for less than 5 years it let the genie out of the bottle and so Lakers Sky Train collapsed in 1982 but by then the established Airlines like British Airways had realized oh tell you what if we cut fairs more people fly and we might actually make a bit more money in spite of Lakers collapse he helped to reduce passenger fairs across the whole of the industry and allowed a lowcost revolution to continue by 1981 British Airways was considered a failing company making staggering losses of almost £300,000 every day and gaining a reputation for poor customer service bosses decided that they needed to reconnect with their passengers and crew member Ros Hanby was chosen to be the new welcoming face of the airline they were looking for an image a new image for the airline they did like these massive interviews I think it was about 1500 people eventually there were three of us and I was lucky enough to be chosen we had a professor on board today who was wrestling with an enormous [Music] problem he got the answer in the end though I can still remember exactly where I was standing when I got the telephone call saying it's you some British Airways passengers seem to need more looking after than others as far as they were concerned that was an experiment because I wasn't professional actress I wasn't a model so they were basing an advertising campaign around somebody who was an unknown quantity really I was flying I was doing my day job um and then I was doing some of the advertising as well and this just grew and grew I think I ended up doing about 20 [Music] commercials we got a little problem but there was just something extraordinarily privileged about that period and that time that you had been chosen to do something very special unfortunately for BA the campaign did little to reverse the company's losses and by 1982 publicly funded ba was still hemorrhaging £300 million a year of taxpayers money in an Margaret Thatcher's Impact and Privatization effort to pull out of the financial nose dive then prime minister Margaret Thatcher decided to bring in John King and Colin Marshall to head it up with a view to privatizing the troubled Airline advertising company Sai and Sachi were chosen to revitalize its image it was going through an extraordinary Revolution as a company Lord King and collee Marshall had come in uh and obviously with a brief from Margaret to get it into a state to privatize it it was slow it was bureaucratic customer service wasn't great um employee morale was poor um occasionally people called it bloody awful as opposed to British Airways um so it wasn't in a great place he set about deliberately sort of starting something completely new ba wanted something spectacular and groundbreaking we didn't show any airplanes we didn't show any passengers or staff or anything like that we talked about the entire population of Manhattan flying to London and um so it was a big statistic every year more people choose to fly with British Airways to more countries than with any other Airline leaving 2,000 ft on the Glide path in fact every year we bring more people across the Atlantic than the entire population of Manhattan the very beauty of it was that it didn't feel like an airline advert and it had a number of roles I mean first and foremost it was to Signal a new era of getting people to think entirely differently that this was not just some nice cuddly British Airline the advert stated the company's place as a huge Global brand and with this exciting New Image the government decided that ba was ready to be privatized well malar fure in 1980s was very much on this big campaign of privatizations and having the belief that uh different SE would benefit far more from companies being run as private commercially driven entities between them King and Marshall set about a process of cost cutting and streamlining and while painful it was effective and soon ba was turning a profit many people would have argued it was allowed to be privatized with as it were a silver spoon in its mouth certain debts were written off the management who oversaw um privatization saw the opportunity to move British Airways away from this this reputation for being bloody awful to becoming the world's favorite Airline so the airline became more profitable and ready for privatization people wasn't quite sure what the share price would be we just had British Telecom just floated privately we had British gas as well and Rolls-Royce so British Airways there was another big player and everyone was thinking how how much would be the share price at the stock market when it opened up the following day the shares went very very well I mean there was a big take for the shares and they soon went up ba was a very profitable business and it was seen because of that's profitability as one of the more successful uh privatizations at the time over some British ARS was in the top five of all the other airlines which was phenomenal really with profits and planes soaring ba had weathered the storm of the 1980s but as the new decade dawned new challenges were just around the corner both in the boardroom and on the battlefield since World War II British Airways had been owned and run by the state but in 1987 the Thatcher government floated the company on the stock exchange now they were responsible to shareholders the management of the airline were determined to keep it ahead of the competition in the skies to do this they once again turned to the ad industry British a was privatized in 1987 and of course pre- privatization it was one of those nationalized Industries which didn't have the reputation that it wanted or could have so we set about deliberately sort of starting something completely new the face commercial was uh I think it was another big sort of um significant punctuation mark in the sort of ba marketing uh development now a private company ba set its stall out with arguably the most expensive advertising campaign of its time creating the face commercial it was 1989 and the airline wanted to project a powerful message that they were big players on the world [Music] stage it wasn't a difficult sell to ba because ba by then uh were part of our culture but it's also fair to say that when I gave them the production budget which I think was the first million pound commercial the sell got a little bit [Music] tougher the idea came from the fact that people fly to be with other people and they don't fly because they want to sit in a airplane in a in a seat for 10 hours or whatever it is they're going on and to eat an airline meal they're really flying to be with someone else so that was very important every year the world's favorite Airline brings 24 million people together everything had to be bigger and better and more prestigious and more affecting on the customer certainly under the sort of King Marshall era um everything had to be the best and if that meant investing money that the consumer would notice and we'll get the right consumer response then they'd go ahead and do it this new found confidence and optimism was mirrored across the airline industry The BA and Virgin Atlantic Rivalry with new Airlines springing up to challenge the dominance of the established carriers Richard Branson had started virgin in 1984 operating with a single aircraft out of Gatwick but it wasn't until New routs were opened up for Virgin Atlantic at Heathrow that the battle really began the Rivalry between uh British Airways and Virgin uh was and in some ways still is quite personal British Airways has an absolutely goldplated advantage over every other airline in the world it's got the majority of slots at Heathrow Airport but before long the airline was being accused of abusing their advantage well the the allegations that were made by virgin were that there was deliberate action by uh British Airways in terms of undercutting and pricing trying to poach passengers Virgin Atlantic's bookings were done through a ba computer guess what apparently they were tapping into it they were getting the customers details they were phoning them up they were pretending to be from Virgin Atlantic saying uh your flight's gone technical oh no oh no let's book you on British Airways I'll tell you what we'll even give you an upgrade to First we've tried to ask for an apology uh we've tried to ask for clear assurances that it won't go on in the future sadly we decided that uh we need to let um the authorities decide who's right and who's wrong virgin got wind of this went to court and it cost millions of pounds and of course didn't make British Airways look at all good obviously delighted with today's result and hope that it will bring in a new era of Fair competition in British aviation history in the future it must have been quite a humiliating climb down for British Airways when it was forced to hand over millions of pounds to Virgin Atlantic this is a an airline which has always said oh we love competition um didn't look as though it was doing that much loving of competition at the time when they were um indulging what later became known as dirty [Music] tricks as it fought a PR war in the wake of the dirty trick Scandal another conflict was brewing thousands of miles away from Heathrow in the Sands of the Middle East Saddam Hussein the ruler of Iraq ordered the invasion of neighboring Kuwait unbeknownst to British Airways and the passengers of flight ba49 they were about to find themselves in the heat of battle and the world was watching when we' landed in cu8 uh for the refueling stop and it was the the cleaning staff that sort of first put us on a bit of a something and you know that kind of feeling you can't quite put your finger on it next thing was a plane shook something was very wrong Jets came over and we heard the bombs exploding the staff will get off the plane leave your bags immediately leave the plane ENT go into the terminal I knew it was being bombed because I could smell the cordite the crew was still they they were still taking you know the responsibilities Ser seriously they were still trying to organize things for the for the benefit of everybody although they were were safely off the plane everyone on board the flight was taken hostage and then transported to different locations in Kuwait and Iraq and became part of the infamous human shield this Camp it was called IBI camp and right next door to the camp was an enormous uh petrochemical installation it had been um all wired up and you could see big Parcels of uh explosives all over the whole of the installation we've been in the camp about uh 10 days maybe and Sadam had said that he was releasing families so we were quite jubilant at that so we got bits packed up um when we went out to um board the coaches they then said the men couldn't go I don't really want to leave them many children were too young to understand the impact of separation others knew only too well that for as long as there is a threat of War their fathers will be forced to stay I did not want to leave my dad did not want to leave my dad I'm sure my mom didn't want to leave him either that was one of the worst bits leaving leaving John cuz I didn't know when I'd ever see him again if I'd see him again so we U we just had to go British Embassy has just confirmed that the Convoy from Kuwait has now reached Baghdad and that the seven coach loads of women and children are safe we ended up at Baghdad airport there was a lot of international media I've remember my brother and I we went around we split up and we went around every single camera and we were basically just jumping up in the cameras hi we're here we're coming home they're saying we're coming home because we didn't know what wouldd get through to over here so we just wanted to we just wanted to try and make sure we got on as many cameras as possible so that the family at home knew we were coming John Chapel his fellow male passengers and the rest of the British Airways crew were released in early December after nearly 3 months of captivity the ba crew just they just seemed to be professional they really did seem to be a sense that they didn't feel they discharged their duty until everyone of the passengers was out of their safe back where they should be that was part of why people flew British Airways because you knew you could rely on a British Airways crew to be on flappable Under [Music] Pressure to take off this sense of calm and control was a Women in the Cockpit: Breaking Barriers vital attribute on the flight deck which until the mid 19 1980s was still regarded as a man's world but as the decade rolled on airlines saw more women confronting the status quo and taking the controls Lyn Barton joined British Airways as a pilot in 1987 when I joined British Airways I was a first officer on the older jumbo which we called the classic um for 5 years and then the opportunity they introduced the 747400 and I was a first officer on that for four years and each year there is a process where they open up the bidding and you bid for the commands you want uh to become a Captain um and it's as Captain's retire and vacancies or expansion and um I after 9 years I got my first command which was on the mixed Fleet of the Boeing 757 and 767 Lynn became the first British Airways female captain in 1996 and has always kept a sense of humor about her being a woman driver we used in those days come out of the flight deck to say goodbye to passengers as they were getting off and I was saying goodbye and uh this large gentleman made some a little bit disparaging remark about having had a female pilot drive him to the destination and behind him was his uh much shorter fearsome wife who gave him an ear bashing all the way off the aircraft it put out with a few remarks funny remarks and doesn't go beyond that really so it's not too bad what kind of remarks oh well the sort of thing it's all very nice but really women should be stay in the kitchen and not you know not trying to interfere sort of thing it was a completely different time but of course being brought up in that time I didn't really perceive it as a handicap if you through what I mean I just I just I never thought I would become a commercial pilot because nobody in the world there was one female commercial PL but I didn't think that would be for me um I just thought that uh oh the world was changing and I could have a job working in a flying school once I was qualified being a girl has been a bonus all along the way I found generally I've had people make remarks but uh you know I can handle that this isn't a real problem you know there are more females flying the globe than ever before ba currently has 280 women pilots but the industry is always looking to encourage more British Airways hasn't been afraid to move with the times with regards to its image either in 1997 the airline made a bold move to drop its traditional tail fin design and reflect cultures from around the world project Utopia 1997 was a way of the British Airways wanted to position themselves in the market as a global brand I loved project Utopia this was a reflection that at the time British Airways was flying about 60% foreign people the idea of changing away from the Union Jack logo on British L Tales fins was that of Bob aen the CEO of the time he felt that as a global airline ba should really reflect its Global nature of operations and really shows something of a taste of the the Multicultural operation that it that it had I stood the reason for wanting to be a global brand and having artwor from all around the world but it was a difficult time because every British Airways employee wants to look out and see their airplane and be proud no I fly for British Airways it was very unusual because we I was so used to seeing the Union Jack on the tow then all of a sudden we got all these different arrangers of artwork all these ethnic tows from around the world from different artists I think having that Multicultural marketing is a brilliant idea it was lovely but it didn't actually fit the mood of course derided in the popular press I think apart from the identification issue if it had come along maybe a decade later people would have thought yes of course we're going to embrace the world this is a marvelous thing to do I know the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher didn't like it at all I think she said we fly the flag not these awful things and covered up a model that she had with with with a a tissue we're very patriotic and we we felt that the British Airways was part of you know the UK you know Great Britain and uh you know we didn't want to lose that identity basically the British press and public didn't want the Contemporary artwork and they demanded the flag back so ba reversed the decision British Airways has never been funky it has not it shouldn't try it's like your dad trying to dance it doesn't work despite this hiccup the future was bright for British Airways as the New Millennium dawned the airline was looking forward to life in its new home a brand new terminal at Heathrow that was until the company and the aviation industry was rocked by news from The Rise of Low-Cost Airlines and the Future of BA Paris aggressive rivalry and competition towards ba in inreased during the 1990s as it felt the looming threat from the orange and emerald armies which ramped up the pressure with their No Frills approach during the 1990s we really began to see uh in Europe the first development of uh lowcost Airlines uh ryion a had changed Its Spots to become the airline that we know today EasyJet was subsequently born and British Airways although they saw that most of that activity was happening in London over at staned airport they became concerned that uh this could steal some of their short all business when EasyJet got going in 1995 everybody including me thought oh well we'll give it a couple of weeks um we've had lots of startup Airlines before why would one with planes painted orange with the phone number in Luton that you're supposed to phone up to book your flight on them uh be any different in retaliation ba launched its own lowcost carrier in 1998 go they ran it separately in order to shake off some of the high costs associated with the legacy of their long history I think the advantage that some of the lowcost carriers had when they started up was that they were brand new so they could start everything from scratch which makes it easier to build up a lowcost base whereas British Airways it's a legacy carrier it's got Legacy systems it's it's got a lot more that it has to do to reduce its costs go as a lowcost airline was starting to use the elements for building blocks which uh were becoming available with the rise of the internet service on board uh again was different uh in some ways it was a reflection back to the shuttle idea that there was no uh complimentary service on board in the airline industry they call it unbundling so you take the food you sell that separately rather than including it in the ticket price if you want to bring a bag a check a bag into the Hall do you have to pay extra for that I feel that the low cost carriers broke it down into to a menu of well you've got your ticket but what else do you want with it do you want to take your luggage do you want to buy food do you want to buy drinks Etc and the short Hall uh Market really change by splitting that out and giving consumers that choice the idea of Legacy Airlines like ba Air France lift tcer and so on setting up a budget subsidiary has always been littered with failure and go potentially was going to be the same except clearly the money that go was eventually sold for shows that actually as a standalone it was a huge success go was eventually bought by EasyJet in 2002 the lowcost carrier paid almost £380 million for their rival despite profits and passenger numbers being squeezed by lowcost Airlines and transatlantic Rivals ba could always fall back on its trump card all the other airlines you know had their 747s and their 75s but British Airways had Concord they had the jewel in the crown but that was to change when the aviation industry as a whole suffered a catastrophic blow in the year 2000 when an Air France Concord crashed shortly after [Music] takeoff the tragic crash of the the Air France Concord was a shock and that did lead to a temporary grounding what really put an end to its operation was uh the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack because Concord really relied on the New York Route on quite a small number of regular Travelers maybe people are traveling perhaps once a week even twice a week 40 50 people perhaps but multiplied up over a year they were making a lot of Journeys on the aircraft and a large number of these people were actually killed in the Twin Towers attack declining passenger numbers and escalating maintenance costs left ba with no choice on the 23rd of October 2003 Concord was withdrawn from Serv in stark contrast to the preceding months its final flights were a complete sellout it was a natural saying goodbye to it and there were fewer and fewer flights there was thousands of people that turned out herro to see it you know the the final three aircraft come in to land and there was people crying it was very sad I mean the the cabin crew were crying when they came off you know and it was just very emotional 40 30 20 begin to check back 10 and a beautiful touchdown absolutely stunning [Applause] [Music] sight the site of that famous final Landing has been Ba's home for DEC decades and he airport has constantly faced challenges in its long history it has always struggled to keep up with vastly increasing passenger numbers and their demands for more amenities it's always been messy uh because it's always just been kind of oh let's build another bit on oh another bit on let's put terminal four over there it's not very good cuz it's the wrong side of an active Runway but we've got to do it there because we can't do it there yet cuz of planning problems so it's a complete mess the solution was Terminal 5 it took 20 years to complete and opened in 2008 designed to handle 35 million passengers a year it became the new home of British Airways we an a like British Airways you're talking about a a fleet that runs into hundreds of aircraft you're talking about more than half the flights in and out of Heath every day operated by British Airways aircraft that's a massive logistical piece of choreography everything was coming together in this 4.3 billion creation biggest engineering project I think in Western Europe at the time um and it lasted I thinko half an hour before things started to go horribly horribly wrong the baggage system all snarled up staff couldn't get into the car parks in order to get to work um it really was one of those most ignominious events British Airways needed Terminal 5 because this is it its main base um it needed this brand new piece of modern technologically advanced architecture it needed a jewel in its Crown um to be able to compete with what passengers have become used to when they travel to airports in other parts of the world you can see out you can see both runways you can actually see real era planes taxiing in and out and planes taking off and Landing which I love after an initial bumpy ride British Airways new home at Heathrow ironed out the te ething problems to become one of the most renowned and efficient facilities of modern Aviation I think for a company like British Airways with its its long and Rich history to look towards the future I think they've they've had to go through the changes that they've gone through they've had to constantly reinvent themselves they've had to make changes to compete with a very fast changing scene lots more competition I think that in the future people will perhaps value the idea of a flag carrying Airline more because although we do have more people traveling on budget Airlines sometimes people want to feel special as the landscape of air passenger travel continues to develop our national flag carrier has come a long way from its humble beginnings in a muddy field to being one of the world's most recognizable Brands as it heads into the exciting but challenging Skies of modernday a avation [Music]