Entries by Gregg James

For over half a century, British Airways served Detroit until it ended service earlier this year. This longtime route is once again available at Virtual British Airways, but now with another British Airways stalwart: the 747-200, our retired aircraft. The 747 was the largest aircraft in the British Airways fleet for over a decade, and with 26 different aircraft in operation, has been an important part of its global growth.

I’m pleased to offer this aircraft in its three most common liveries, the "Red Tail" scheme from 1972-1984, the "Landor" scheme (1984-1997), and the current "Chatham Dockyard" Union flag scheme. Additional 747-200 flights may be available in the coming months, possibly to Australia and New Zealand.

I’m pleased to announce that the first of the BMED routes is now available as a Discontinued Flight at British Airways. In late 2007 British Mediterranean Airways (BMED) was acquired by bmi, which soon ended BMED's franchise agreement with British Airways. At Virtual British Airways there will be no differentiation between these flights and regular British Airways flights, including aircraft, when they are added. Destinations to be added will hopefully include, although not all might be possible to add due to scheduling constraints:
-Addis Ababa
-Aleppo
-Alexandria
-Almaty
-Amman
-Ankara
-Ashgabat
-Baku
-Beirut
-Bishkek
-Dakar
-Damascus
-Ekaterinburg
-Freetown
-Khartoum
-Luxor
-Tashkent
-Tehran
-Tbilisi
-Yerevan

BMED began flying in 1994 with one A320 aircraft flying from London Heathrow to destinations in the Middle East. In 1997 the airline entered a franchise agreement with British Airways in which BMED operated all of its flights with British Airways’ product, livery, and service as regular British Airways flights (the original livery is pictured). BMED benefited greatly from this arrangement and was able to pick up unprofitable mainline routes from British Airways that were better suited to its cost structure. By the time it was bought, BMED operated its 8 Airbus A320s and A321s to seventeen destinations in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia from Heathrow.