• British Airways I

Allied British Airways was formed on 30 September 1935 to amalgamate Hillman’s Airways, Spartan Air Lines and United Airways into a single entity. The airline changed its name to British Airways on 29 October 1935 and becoming a public company with a total capital exceeding £245,000. Hillman’s Airways remained a separate public company whilst Spartan Air Lines and United Airways were both owned by the Whitehall Securities Corporation, a holding company for the diverse international assets of the Pearson family, which included building and construction, oil, metal airscrews and Simmonds Spartan Aircraft.

The new company commenced operations on 1 January 1936, based at West London’s Heston aerodrome, having inherited a combined fleet of over 40 aircraft, mainly multi-engine DH types plus several Spartan Cruisers and a sole AW Argosy. For a few months, before fleet standardisation on multi-engine DH types began, the various companies maintained largely separate operations; Hillman’s to Paris and Brussels, Spartan to the Isle of Wight and United serving the northwest and the Isle of Man, As integration proceeded, British Airways began turning its attentions towards the continent, gradually falling into line with the recommendations of the government’s Maybury Committee, which proposed a complete realignment of British air services to avoid wasteful competition and route duplication.

Thus, following survey and proving flights to Malmo in a DH Dragon Rapide at the end of January 1936 and again on 12 February 1937, a full scheduled service, initially twice-weekly and later daily, was commenced a few days later; the first flight being accomplished by a Hillman’s DH.86 routing via Amsterdam, Hamburg and Copenhagen. However, British Airways had been overtaken by British Continental which had formally launched its own service to Malmo on 7 February 1937. With the opening of Stockholm’s new aerodrome at Bromma, British Airways extended the route to the Swedish capital from 1 July, operated daily except Sunday. But the problem remained that the route attracted both a government subsidy and a General Post Office mail contract, both of which were awarded to British Airways, much to the consternation of its competitor. The first mail was carried by British Airways as far as Malmo under the banner ‘The Viking Royal Mail Express’ on 17 March 1936 by Capt. W F Anderson flying in DH.86, G-ADEB.

In April 1936 British Airways acquired four Fokker F.XII airliners from Crilly Airways and these were temporarily placed on the Paris route. Following Crilly’s ill-fated attempt to start services to Portugal, BA took over the operation under the title British Airways (Iberia) Ltd, but fared no better since the Spanish government refused to grant permission for overflights. In July 1936 the Fokkers were sold on via BA’s Portuguese agents to interests representing the Spanish nationalists, though two crashed on their delivery flights in August. In mid-May British Airways began operating from the newly-completed Gatwick airport and, towards the end of the month, transferred the remainder of its DH Rapides and Spartan Cruisers to Whitehall Securities’ Scottish subsidiary, Northern and Scottish Airways. This company subsequently evolved into Scottish Airways in mid-August 1937 under a joint shareholding between British Airways, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Co and David MacBrayne, operator of Scottish highlands and islands sea ferries.

Under bi-lateral agreement with the Air Ministry, British Airways began a night mail service between London and Hannover, first flown by DH.86B, G-ADEB, on 27 July 1936 via Cologne. British Airways received a £20-25,000 subsidy for this nightly (except Sunday) service, flown in conjunction with ABA of Sweden, which operated the connecting sector between Hannover and Stockholm. Nine-monthly trading figures revealed that 7,602 flights had been completed covering a total distance of 943,248 miles; on the Swedish route mail uplift was heavy and very few passengers were carried.

On 1 August 1936 British Airways acquired control of British Continental Airways, which had also been serving the Scandinavian route, though without the benefit of subsidy or a mail contract. The price paid was £63,204 in ordinary shares plus £27,500 for the goodwill, including British Continental Airway’s fleet of DH.86s and Rapides. Early in November 1936 BA reinstated the London-Lille service, previously flown by British Continental Airways, but this was not successful and it was terminated at the beginning of March 1937. A month earlier British Airways had been forced to abandon Gatwick after waterlogging prevented its safe usage and the airline moved to Croydon, until May 1938, when yet another switch saw the airline headquartered back at Heston.

The DH.86 had never been popular with British Airways crews due to its susceptibility to icing on the northern routes and following two serious crashes on the German night mail in August and September 1936, the entire fleet was upgraded to DH.86B standard to improve their handling. Replacement for the losses came early in 1937 with the acquisition of two Ju.52 3ms from ABA and two Fokker F.VIIIs from KLM. British Airways’s equipment problems were partly solved in the spring of 1937 with the arrival of the first 200 mph Lockheed Electra, which entered service on 5 April between London and Paris, followed by Malmo and Stockholm later in the month. The purchase of American aircraft came about because of a requirement for a fast airliner for the Swedish route, which no British manufacturer could fulfill. But despite their technological superiority, it was only a matter of months before the first accident occurred, when G-AEPP came to grief while landing at Croydon with engine trouble in December 1937.

In early August 1937 the night mail was extended to Berlin by Ju.52, flown alternately by British Airways and DLH. By April 1938 the fleet comprised six Electras and three Ju.52s, with the two remaining Fokkers relegated to training duties. Such was the appeal of the Electra that the Paris service was now flown up to six times daily. British Airways was interested in opening a link between London and Oslo, but did not proceed as the government subsidy was already allocated to Allied Airways for its Newcastle-Stavanger service. On 3 September 1938 British Airways took delivery of the first of its new Lockheed 14 aircraft, which had been obtained on the basis of developing a route to South America via Lisbon and West Africa, planned to start on 2 January 1939. Indeed, ground survey parties had already been at work since November 1937, but in the meantime the L14 (G-AFGN) was placed on the Stockholm run from 18 September and a week or so later carried prime minister Neville Chamberlain to Munich for his historic talks with Adolf Hitler. Towards the end of the year several proving flights were conducted as far as Bathurst, Sierra Leone, but official insistence that British aircraft must be used despite the fact that nothing suitable was available, caused the project to stall and no further progress was made before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Following the recommendations of the Cadman Committee that British Airways should concentrate on continental routes, with the introduction of the summer timetable early in April 1939 new services to Brussels, Budapest via Frankfurt and Warsaw via Berlin were introduced, together with a joint Imperial Airways British Airways service to Paris flown by the new DH.91 Albatross all-metal airliner. After suffering heavy losses, Allied Airways, shut down its Norwegian operation and with a view to taking over and extending this route, Capt. D S King set out from Heston in L14 G-AFYU on 28 August 1939, with a party of airline and government officials to Stavanger, Stockholm and Helsinki. In the same month the company ordered 9 Douglas DC-5s for use on their Berlin route but the order was inevitably cancelled as the British Government looked to fund military contracts.

In early August 1939 the British Overseas Airways Bill, calling for the amalgamation of British Airways and Imperial Airways into a single airline, had received royal assent. With the declaration of war on 3 September 1939 Imperial Airways decamped to Bristol’s Whitchurch aerodrome and on the following day resumed the Scandinavian service with the Ju.52s and a single L14 over a revised route from Perth in Scotland. Although in practice Imperial Airways and British Airways had functioned as a combined unit from the outbreak of war, they were officially amalgamated into the new British Overseas Airways Corporation from 1 April 1940.