British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which was founded in 1946 and ceased operations in 1974.
BEA operated to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from airports around the United Kingdom.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA), Vol. 45, No. 6, pp. 44/5, 49 (Jet equipment), Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012 The airline was also the largest UK domestic operator, serving major British cities, including London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast, as well as areas of the British Isles such as the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA: Highlands and Islands – Never on a Sunday), Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 46, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012 BEA also operated a network of internal German routes between West Berlin and West Germany as part of the Cold War agreements regulating air travel within Germany.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA: Internal German Services – Berlin-bound), Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 51, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012 The company slogan was Number One in Europe.
Formed as the British European Airways division of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) on 1 January 1946, BEA became a crown corporation in its own right on 1 August 1946.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA: Post-war pioneers), Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 45, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012
Operations commenced from Croydon and Northolt airports, with DH89A Dragon Rapides and Douglas DC-3s.
Having established its main operating base at Northolt, BEA operated its first service from Heathrow in April 1950; by late 1954, all Northolt operations had moved to Heathrow, which remained the airline's main operating base until the merger with BOAC in 1974.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA means business), Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 47, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012
During 1952, BEA carried its millionth passenger, and by the early 1960s it had become the Western world'sexcluding the former Eastern Bloc countries and the People's Republic of China fifth-biggest passenger-carrying airlineafter American Airlines, United Airlines, Eastern Air Lines and Trans World Airlines (TWA) and the biggest outside the United States.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA), Vol. 45, No. 6, pp. 45, 49 (Jet equipment), Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012
In 1950, BEA operated the world's first turbine-powered commercial air service with Vickers' Viscount 630 prototype, from London to Paris.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA means business), Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 48, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012 The airline entered the jet age in 1960 with de Havilland's DH106 Comet 4B.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA: Jet equipment), Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 48, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012 On 1 April 1964, it became the first to operate the DH121 Trident; on 10 June 1965, a BEA Trident 1C performed the world's first automatic landing during a scheduled commercial air service.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA: Jet equipment), Vol. 45, No. 6, pp. 50/1, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012
For most of its existence, BEA was headquartered at BEAline House in Ruislip, Hillingdon.
BEA ceased to exist as a separate legal entity on 1 April 1974, when the merger with BOAC to form British Airways (BA) took effect.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... BEA: Birth of BA), Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 52, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012 The name was revived by British Airways from 1991 to 2008 when it changed the name of an existing subsidiary, British Airways Tour Operations Limited to British European Airways Limited. British Airways Tour Operations Limited was itself founded in 1935 as an air travel company, named Silver Wing Surface Arrangements Limited.Companies House London, https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00297907
History
Formation and early years (1946–1950) With the outbreak of war in September 1939 all commercial and private flying within the UK had been severely restricted by the government due to the possibility of civil flights encountering enemy aircraft. To offset this halting of civilian air traffic limited aerial services were instead carried out from 1940 onwards by the state-owned and operated British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) to a number of destinations, both European, and worldwide. On 1 January 1946, the Attlee government lifted wartime restrictions on civil flying in the United Kingdom. Within Europe, this resulted in BOAC resuming Imperial Airways' pre-war routes to continental Europe augmented by Royal Air Force Transport Command non-military flights from Croydon Airport, using Douglas Dakotas in RAF livery flown by crews in RAF uniforms,Halford (2006), p. 35 and UK domestic air services operated by the Associated Airways Joint Committee (AAJC), which had been formed of several pre-war charter companies on 27 June 1940."The British Corporations" Flight 28 April 1949, p. 500
BOAC formed a British European Airways division on 1 January 1946, in anticipation of that year's Civil Aviation Act. Following its formation, BOAC's new division began taking over Transport Command's operations from 4 March 1946. On that day, it inaugurated a weekly Dakota service from Northolt to Madrid and Gibraltar, followed by additional Dakota services to Stavanger and Oslo, Copenhagen, as well as Athens via Marseille and Rome. On each of these flights, half of the Dakota's 16 seats were reserved for UK government officials. Initially, crews continued to wear BOAC uniforms. Although some services still used Croydon for some time, the main operating base moved to RAF Northolt.
On 1 August 1946, the Civil Aviation Act 1946 was given royal assent and passed into law. This established BEA as a crown corporation in its own right (British European Airways Corporation) and transferred primary responsibility for scheduled air services from the UK to Europe (including the British Isles) to BEA. To fulfill its role as the new short- and medium-haul British flag carrier, BEA was organised into two divisions based at Northolt and Liverpool Speke respectively, with the former responsible for all scheduled services to the Continent and the latter for all scheduled services within the British Isles. The Civil Aviation Act 1946 furthermore provided for nationalisation of private, independentindependent from government-owned corporations British scheduled airlines and gave BEA a legal monopoly as the sole short-haul scheduled British airline.Halford (2006), p. 34 Due to BEA's inability to take over the UK domestic flights of independent scheduled operators such as Railway Air Services, Allied Airways (Gandar Dower) and British Channel Islands AirwaysBEA "Decade" Flight 3 August 1956 on 1 August, these independents continued to ply their scheduled routes under contract to BEA until they were absorbed into the corporation in 1947."The British Corporations" Flight 28 April 1949, p. 501
The first flight operated by the newly constituted British European Airways Corporation departed Northolt for Marseille, Rome and Athens on the day of its formation at 8:40 am. This was followed by further route launches to Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon.
Initially, BEA supplemented its ex-RAF Transport Command Dakotas with Dragon Rapides and Avro Nineteens.
Between August and October 1946, BEA took delivery of the first 11 of an eventual 83 Vickers Viking piston-engined airliners. These were BEA's first new aircraft, which it leased from the UK government. The first Viking revenue service departed Northolt for Copenhagen on 1 September 1946. Compared with the Dakota, the Viking took 35 minutes less to reach Copenhagen from London. Following their introduction on the London–Copenhagen route, Vikings began replacing Dakotas on BEA's services to Amsterdam, Oslo, Stockholm, Gibraltar and Prague.Classic Aircraft "Gone but not forgotten ... BEA", Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 47, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012
In November 1946, BEA's first service to Northern Ireland departed Croydon for Belfast (Sydenham) via Liverpool, using an ex-Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 52/3m operated by independent airline Railway Air Services on the fledgling corporation's behalf. The following month, BEA's Belfast operations transferred to Nutts Corner while Dakotas replaced the "Jupiter" class Ju 52s from 1947.
On 1 February 1947, the process of merging the wholly private, independent airlines operating in the UK under the AAJC umbrella into BEA began. Railway Air Services,Merton Jones (1972) p. 64 Isle of Man Air Services,Merton Jones (1972) p. 48 and Scottish Airways (which had been formed in 1937 by merging Northern & Scottish Airways and Highland Airways)Merton Jones (1972) p. 67 were among the first independents merged into the new corporation.
1947 was also the year BEA operated its first scheduled all-cargo flight from Northolt to Brussels with a DC-3 freighter.Classic Aircraft "Gone but not forgotten ... Cargo carriers: unsung workhorses of BEA", Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 49, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012 The same year, it inaugurated a scheduled service between Land's End Airport in southwest Cornwall, England, and St Mary's Airport on the largest island of the Isles of Scilly archipelago off the southwest coast of Cornwall, using "Islander" class Dragon Rapides.
Despite the previous year's nationalisation of several private airlines and their absorption into BEA, the government-owned carrier continued to contract its private sector counterparts to operate a limited number of regional feeder services on its behalf via "associate" agreements. These needed to be approved by the Air Transport Advisory Council (ATAC), the contemporary UK government department in charge of air transport economic regulation. Cambrian and Western Airways were the first two airlines to be given associate status by BEA in May 1948. These arrangements enabled the latter to contract the operation of a new feeder route between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare to both of the former, which respectively used Dragon Rapides and Avro Ansons to provide a daily service.Airliner World (Cambrian Airways – The Welsh Dragon), Key Publishing, Stamford, UK, September 2012, p. 66 East Anglian Flying Services (EAFS) was another early BEA associate. The association agreement between BEA and EAFS resulted in the latter operating a Southend–Rochester feeder service on behalf of the former.Classic Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... Channel Airways: Going scheduled), p. 65, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, March 2012
1948 was also the year BEA's reservations department moved to new premises at Dorland Hall, Lower Regent Street in London's West End.Classic Aircraft "Gone but not forgotten ... BEA: Inner-city terminals – Going by Commando and Routemaster", Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 48, Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham, June 2012
BEA made aviation history in 1950 with the world's first turbine-powered commercial air service from London to Paris, using the UK Ministry of Supply-owned Vickers Viscount 630 prototype G-AHRF. By that time, BEA's main operating base at Northolt was the busiest airport in the UK; however, the airline was losing money, which resulted in replacing former BOAC director, Gerard d'Erlanger, who was BEA's first chairman, with Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, as well as appointing Peter Masefield as its new managing director.
In April 1950, BEA operated its first service from London Heathrow Airport.