British Airways – Operational Environmental
Introduction
British Airways (BA) is the UK’s largest international scheduled airline, currently flying to over
550 destinations. The British Airways group consists of British Airways Plc and a number of subsidiary companies including, among others, International Aeradio, British Airways Helicopters serving mainly the North Sea oil rigs and British Airways Holidays Limited
(BA 2008)and (Encyclopaedia Britannica-a).
Historically, British Airways was created as a state-owned company in April 1974 by a merger between British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC formed in 1939) and British European Airways (BEA formed in 1946) and their associated companies (Encyclopaedia Britannica-a).
Despite a pooling of resources and expertise of the merged airlines, BA experienced growth pains which culminated in a pre-tax loss of £141 million in the year ending 31 March 1981. Lord King of Wartnaby was appointed as Chairman in February 1981 to return the company to profitability and prepare it for privatisation. As a result of his sweeping changes (staff reductions, fleet modernisation, improvement of control systems and terminal facilities and a new responsiveness to customer needs) , the company earned profits in the year ended 31 March 1983 (BA 1987).
With the major technical and operational changes paying dividends, BA management was the next to be overhauled between 1983 and 1986; with an emphasis on the commercial and marketing divisions (BA 1987). The company was returned to profitability and subsequently
privatised in 1987 (Encyclopaedia Britannica-a).
Political Environment
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