New Digital Collection: British Airways Opens Centenary Archive Collection to Celebrate ts 100-Year History
From British Airways:
To mark British Airways’ centenary this year, the airline has opened its archive collection to the public for the first time to share never-before-seen memories of key moments from its 100-year history.
The British Airways Centenary Archive Collection explores moments from the very first international flight with its predecessor airline, Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited (AT&T) on August 25, 1919 carrying a journalist, Devonshire cream, leather and several brace of grouse, to the latest images of its brand-new Club Suite.
The collection, which will be hosted on a special centenary hub, showcases hundreds of historical photos and videos, as well as articles explaining how the British Airways we know today evolved from a single-engine De Havilland aircraft flying the world’s first daily international scheduled flight to Paris, to become a leading airline flying more than 45 million customers a year to more than 200 destinations across the world.
The digital collection includes images and videos of aircraft throughout the decades, close-up photographs of uniforms worn by generations of cabin crew and pilots, behind-the-scenes memorabilia from Royal and Olympic flights, and artefacts from Concorde – the most famous aircraft that ever flew.
The reveal of the Centenary Archive Collection comes just a day after British Airways had the honour of hosting a visit from Her Majesty the Queen at the airline’s headquarters at Heathrow, to mark the centenary.
British Airways will continue to develop and add to the site throughout its centenary year, including adding recollections written by current and retired colleagues and carefully preserved records, documents and images from its extensive archive.
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The British Airways Heritage Collection is managed by retired British Airways’ colleagues based at the airline’s head office near Heathrow. It comprises hundreds of thousands of documents and pieces of memorabilia from British Airways and its predecessor companies British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), British European Airwats (BEA), British South American Airways (BSAA) and the pre-war Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd.
Direct to Complete Launch Announcement
Direct to BA centenary Digital Archive
Filed under: Digital Collections, Digital Preservation, News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.