British Asia Airways

British Asia Airways
A British Asia Airways Boeing 747-400 in its Landor livery variant at Heathrow Airport in 1994.
IATA ICAO Call sign
BR BAW SPEEDBIRD
Founded20 January 1993 (1993-01-20)
Commenced operations29 March 1993 (1993-03-29)
Ceased operations4 March 2002 (2002-03-04)
(re-integrated into British Airways)
Focus cities
Frequent-flyer programExecutive Club
AllianceOneworld (affiliate; 1999–2001)
Fleet size3
Parent companyBritish Airways
HeadquartersTaipei, Taiwan

British Asia Airways Limited was a subsidiary of British Airways founded due to the legal status of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and territory disputes with the People's Republic of China in order to allow British Airways to continue flying to Taiwan from the United Kingdom.[1]

History

Due to political sensitivities, national airlines operating flights to the People's Republic of China were not permitted to fly to Taiwan.[2] Similar arrangements were made by other airlines, such as Japan Airlines, KLM, Qantas.[3], Swissair and Air France. Lufthansa provided service to Taipei under the name of its former subsidiary, Condor.

It used the Boeing 747-400 repainted in a special livery, with the Union Flag tailfin being replaced by the Chinese characters 英亞 (Hanyu Pinyin: Yīng Yà; literally "British Asia").[4] The airline flew between Taipei and Hong Kong using the code BR, which BA had inherited from British Caledonian, while the flight from London used BA.[5]

The airline ceased operations after British Airways ceased flights to Taipei in December 2001.[6]

Destinations

British Asia Airways used to serve the following destinations:

Fleet

During its eight-year existence, British Asia Airways operated the following aircraft:[7]

British Asia Airways fleet
Aircraft In service Orders Passengers Notes
F C Y Total
Boeing 747-400 5 — 14 55 332 401 3 aircraft wore the World Tails.
Returned to British Airways.
Total 5 —

See also

Airlines created for political reasons:

References

  1. ^ Calder, Simon (23 April 1993). "Special Report on Long-Haul Air Travel: 'Air Asia' goes from strength to strength: Simon Calder looks at the growing success of the Eastern travel industry". The Independent. London.
  2. ^ "Why Taiwan is still an [sic] unique escape". The Independent. London. 16 June 2007. Archived from the original on 19 May 2008.
  3. ^ Robert Storey (1998). Taiwan. Lonely Planet. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-86442-634-5.
  4. ^ "Explore our past: 1990 - 1999". British Airways.
  5. ^ "Something to declare: A likely story". The Independent. London. 14 September 1996.
  6. ^ "Explore our past: 2000- Present". British Airways.
  7. ^ "British Asia Airways Fleet Details and History". Planespotters.net. Retrieved 5 January 2022.

Media related to British Asia Airways at Wikimedia Commons