BA can trace its roots back to 1924 when Imperial Airways was formed
from a collection of smaller companies.
Meanwhile some other smaller aviation companies formed privately owned British Airways
Ltd in 1935.
Imperial and British Airways were merged by the government in 1939 to form the newly
nationalised British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).
In 1952 BOAC started to operate their first jet aircraft the "Comet".
in 1972 BOAC and British European Airways merged to form the British Airways Board.
In 1974 they became one airline - British Airways.
In 1976 BA started to fly the Concorde supersonic aircraft.
The airline was privatised in 1987 and floated on the stock market.
In 2003 the Concordes were all retired.
Lord King was originally appointed in 1981 and saw the airline through privatisation.
Since he stepped down in 1993, the airline has gone through some turbulent times,
with the dirty tricks accusations from Virgin Atlantic, poor industrial relations and repercussions of 9/11 and has seen 4
Cheif Executives.
The latest since 2005 is Willie Walsh formerly of Aer Lingus.
The airline employs around 47800 staff.
