About Us

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Our Company

British Airways is the UK's largest international airline and one of the world's leading global premium carriers.

Operating one of the most extensive international scheduled airline route networks, together with our joint business agreement, codeshare and franchise partners, we fly to more than 70 different countries.
With a fleet of over 280 aircraft we carry almost 40 million customers a year.

As a founding member of oneworld, the alliance of airlines around the globe, we collectively serve some 1,000 destinations across the globe.

Who are we?

Our state-of-the-art Global Learning Academy (GLA) brings together all areas of training within British Airways into one centre of excellence.

What facilities do we have?

Whether you require the services of a BA Instructor to deliver your Training for you, or lease hire facilities with your own Instructor. We can offer and deliver a vast portfolio of Flight, Cabin and Engineering Training products and equipment.

We put our Customers at the heart of everything we do, we continually strive to offer a consistent, reliable training solution, tailored to support individual needs and delivered in a safe and positive working environment.

collapsedshowOur Heritage
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Our Heritage

British Airways can trace its origins back to the birth of civil aviation, the pioneering days following World War I.  From the world's first schedule air service between London and Paris on 25 August 1919 by Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited (AT&T), a forerunner company of today’s British Airways.  Air travel has changed beyond all recognition, each decade saw new developments and challenges, which shaped the path for the future and made British Airways the airline it is today.

collapsedshowOur History
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Our History

In 1924 Imperial Airways was created as the government’s “chosen instrument of air travel” by the amalgamation of The Instone Air Line Ltd., Handley Page Air Transport Ltd., The Daimler Airway and British Marine Air Navigation Co. Ltd.  Imperial began services from London (Croydon) to European destinations as well as pioneering routes to Africa, the Middle East and India.

In April 1940 a new state airline was formed in the name of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), and operated wartime services under the control of the Air Ministry.  In 1946, London Airport was opened officially. British European Airways (BEA) and British South American Airways (BSAA) were created to operate commercial services to Europe and South America respectively.

The delivery of the De Havilland Comet in 1952 enabled BOAC to operate the world’s first pure jet services and with the Comet 4 in October 1958, the first transatlantic pure jet service.  BEA introduced the world-beating Vickers Viscount propeller-turbined aircraft into service on its UK domestic and European routes.

Deliveries of Boeing 707s and Vickers VC-10s to BOAC in 1960, and De Havilland Tridents to BEA in 1962, provided new commercial opportunities for both airlines. In 1965, at Heathrow, a BEA Trident made the world’s first fully automatic landing carrying commercial passengers.

The arrival of the Boeing 747 in 1971, the first wide-bodied jet, and the advent of supersonic flight with Concorde in 1976, presented contrasting new commercial opportunities and challenges.  In 1974 British Airways was created by the merger of BOAC and BEA.

In 1986 the largest single aircraft order ever placed was made by British Airways, for 16 Boeing 747-436 aircraft plus another 12 on option and the airline’s longhaul services moved into the newly-built Terminal 4 at Heathrow.  Under the leadership of Chairman Lord King, the privatisation of British Airways was completed in 1987 and in 1988 the airline introduced the Airbus A320 in to service and merged with Gatwick-based British Caledonian Airways.

British Airways took delivery of its first Boeing 777 in 1995, for services from Heathrow to Dubai and Muscat.  1999 and the formation of a new global alliance – oneworld – was announced, which also included Qantas and American.

February 2008, British Airways became the first airline to be accredited to offer cabin crew a professional qualification.  New entrants on the cabin crew training programme can now obtain a National Vocational Qualification level two – equivalent to five GCSEs.  This move was a result of BA achieving City and Guilds approved centre status.
March 2008 and Engineers from British Airways handled maintenance for the first Airbus A380 to fly into a UK airport. The Singapore Airlines’ passenger service touched down at Heathrow.

British Airways merges with Iberia in 2010 to form the parent company under the name of International Airlines Group, whilst both airlines retain their individual identities.
December 2012, British Airways takes delivery of a Boeing 787 flight simulator and BA's first Airbus A380 takes to the sky.

As the airline has merged and developed to form the British Airways of today, training has always been at the heart of every achievement.

Please explore the rest of our website and we look forward to welcoming you to our training centre.