Comment
Comment on historic aviation by the chief executive of the UK’s Light Aircraft Association
When next summer you snap open the ring-pull on your favourite canned drink, spare a thought for where it came from. It’s not inconceivable that the aluminium you might be holding is a recycled part of a British Airways Boeing 747.
The unprecedented collapse of global air travel in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has meant the premature withdrawal from service of airliners around the world. The end of the road for the British Airways 747-400 fleet is perhaps the most emotive, certainly for aviation enthusiasts in the UK.
While many of the world’s operators quietly shuffled their 747s to desert ‘boneyards’ in the USA, or other locations as far afield as Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, Teruel in Spain, Tarbes in France and Alice Springs in Australia, a significant proportion of the BA fleet has remained in Britain. They now haunt parking areas at airfields including Cardiff and St Athan in Wales, Newquay in Cornwall and Cotswold Airport in Gloucestershire. The latter currently has no less than 15 Boeing 747s parked on site with, in addition to the British Airways aircraft, examples from KLM, Air Atlanta Icelandic, Corsair and MK Airlines.
