Boac, Bea, Cambrian And Northeast Merged To Become British Airways

British Airways, the flag carrier of UK, is the largest airline company in the UK in terms of fleet size, international flights operated and international destinations served and also the second largest measured by passengers travelled, the first being easyJet.

British Airways was formed in 1974 by merger of two giant airlines BOAC and BEA, along with two smaller airlines Cambrian Airways and Northeast Airlines and after being a state owned company for 13 years, it turned into a private enterprise in 1987, thereafter it acquired two airline companies making its size bigger than ever.

British Airways has its hubs at London Heathrow airport and London Gatwick Airport, running its Frequent Flyer program of Executive Club and Premier, it has a fleet size of 234 with operations in 169 destinations, apart from those connected by its subsidiaries and code share partners.

British Airways is also the founding member of Oneworld airline alliance forum, which it started with the association of American Airlines, Cathey Pacific, Qantas and Caadian Airlines which is now not in operation.

British Airways has its subsidiary airline companies, which are BA CityFlyer, OpenSkies and British Airways world Cargo, besides Code Share agreements with six important airlines of the world.

Qatar Airways is the flag carrier of Qatar, with its basic hub at Doha International Airport, operating a fleet of 106 aircrafts including its cargo flights, serving 115 destinations in the world, has as many as eight subsidiaries which are

•Qatar Aircraft Catering Company
•Spanair
•Qatar Airways Holidays
•United Media International
•Qatar Duty Free
•Qatar Aviation Services
•Qatar distribution company
•Qatar Executive

Qatar Airways, being a state-owned enterprise, has its official slogan as World’s Five Star Airline, and has entered code share agreements with ten international Airlines Companies.

It is an admirable point to note that Qatar Airways won the Best Cabin Crew in the Middle East award released by Skytrax for the seventh consecutive year in 2009 and it is equally important to note that its cabin crew includes 120 nationalities which is a matter of pride too.

Qatar Airways cabins are classified into three as of now, namely First Class, Business Class and Economy, while the company is planning to bring it to only two classes of travel in its new flights, and the inflight entertainment in Qatar Airways flights are branded Oryx Entertainment, having both seat back TV screens and Main Screening infrastructure depending upon the flights, which the company is planning to make it only Back TV Screen entertainment in all its flights.