1970
January: BOAC inaugural non-stop service London-Miami.

March: First BOAC Boeing 747 hangar completed at Heathrow.

6 March: First commercial flight of BEA Airtours Limited - Gatwick to Palma.

April: First BEA direct scheduled service London and Inverness.

First BEA London-Bucharest service.

1 May: BEA commenced London-Pisa service.

June: Inaugural flight of BEA London-Belgrade-Sofia service by Trident Two aircraft.

24 September: HRH Princess Alexandra opened BOAC’s new passenger terminal at John F Kennedy International Airport, New York.

7 November: BEA commenced London to Marrakech service via Gibraltar.

December: British Overseas Air Charter Limited formed.

1971
1 January: Mr Henry Marking became Chairman of BEA and a member of the board of BOAC following the retirement of Sir Anthony Milward on 31 December.

Mr Keith Granville became Chairman of BOAC and a member of the Board of BEA, succeeding Sir Charles Hardie.

Mr J Ross Stainton appointed BOAC Managing Director.

February: The first of 26 Trident Three aircraft was accepted by BEA.

March: BOAC’s West African routes and London-Tripoli route transferred to British Caledonian Airways.

1 March: First revenue-earning flight of a BEA Trident Three aircraft (G-AWZB) from London to Paris (Orly).

On 14 April BOAC operated its first commercial Boeing 747 flight (G-AWNF, Heathrow-JFK).

April: A major reorganisation of BEA Group structure into ten separate operating units became effective.

2 April: BEA London-Zagreb service commenced.

BEA London-Reykjavik service commenced.

BEA London-Heraklion (Crete) service commenced.

2 May: BEA London-Leningrad service commenced.

July: BEA’s new £1.3 million Engineering Training and Computer Centre building was completed.

September: New BEA £2.6m large hangar for future wide-bodied aircraft was handed over.

7 October: Mr David Nicholson was named as the first Chairman of the British Airways Board.

31 October: After more than 25 years, BEA ceased operation to Paris Le Bourget Airport.

1 November: A new Birmingham-Malta Trident Three service was introduced. New BEA services commenced from London to Keflavik, Zagreb, Marrakech, Rhodes and Crete.

BEA started London-Istanbul non-stop flights.

1972
27 January: ‘FICO’ (Flight Information and Control of Operations) Real-Time computer control of day-to-day flight operations became operational.

1 April: The Queen’s Award for Industry was conferred upon the Management Services Department of BOAC for technological innovation in respect of the BOADICEA real-time computer system.

New BEA service London-Marseille commenced.

New BEA service Manchester-Geneva commenced.

New BEA service London-Tangier via Malta commenced.

New BEA service Manchester-Munich commenced.

May: New BEA service London-Cagliari (Sardinia) commenced.

New BEA service Jersey-Amsterdam commenced.

Following the recommendation of The Edwards Committee, the government announced its intention to merge BEA and BOAC to form British Airways. The British Airways Group was established on 1 September. BOAC and BEA were dissolved on 31 March 1974 on the formation of British Airways.

1974
Two Brritish Aerospace 748s ordered shortlky after the merger for deliuvery in 1975 for use in Scotland, partly to begin replacing the ageing Viscouint and also to support Nortth Sea explaoration.

The Standard VC-10 fleet and three remaing Vnaguards were retired due to over-capacity.

The first Lockheed TriStar arrived in October, but did not enter service until January 1975 because of industrial problems.
1975.

In January British Airways introduced Lockheed TriStars on European routes, initially to Brussels, Madrid, Malaga, Palma and Paris CDG.

On 12 January British Airways launched Europe’s first no-reservation guaranteed seat walk-on Shuttle service, from Heathrow to Glasgow.

During May an agreement with Air New Zealand (ANZ) enabled ANZ’s DC-10s flown by BA crews to operate the Heathrow-Los Angeles route in place of Boeing 707s.

13 Viscounts were withdrawn during 1975-1976 to reduce some of Regional Division’s losses.

The Rolls Royce-powered Boeing 747-200 was launched with British Airways’ order for four.

1976
The world’s first passenger supersonic services were inaugurated simultaneously on 21 January by British Airways to Bahrain (Concorde G-BOAA) and Air France to Rio de Janeiro via Dakar.

Concorde flights to Washington Dulles opened on 24 May; noise problems delayed operations to New York JFK.

BA’s first two Boeing 747-236s were delivered during June.

1977
During April a major reorganisation saw the airline adopt a single functional-based operating structrure with departments set up to oversee Flight Operations, Engineering, Planninmg etc for the whole airline. Commercial operations were split into geograpohiocal route groups: UK& Ireland, North and East Europe, West and Souythern Europe and for the longhaul network Eastern, Southern anmd Western routes.

The search for new shorthaul airliners to replace Tridents began.

On 2 November HM The Queen flew from Barbados to Heathrow on Concorde G-BOAE at the end of her Caribbean tour.

On 22 November, Concorde services opened to New York JFK and on 9 December to Singapore, an extension of the Bahrain service, in conjunction with Singapore Airlines. Concorde G-BOAD wore Singapore Airlines’ livery on its port side for use on the route.

1978
In July, orders for 19 Boeing 737-236s and three Bae 1-11-539s were placed.

1979
Concorde began operating between Washington and Dallas under a lease agreement with Braniff International in January. Three services per week operated until June 1980.

Two Lockheed TriStar –200s were ordered in January followed by six in September, BA’s final TriStar order. Deliveries took place between March 1980 and May 1981.

The new Boeing 757 was launched during March with orders for 19 from British Airways and 21 from Eastern (USA).

The first of six long-range TriStar –500s entered service between London and Abu Dhabi in May.

A Conservative government was elected in May which declared BA would no longer receive any State support or interference in its commercial decision-making. In July the government’s intention to go ahead with privatisation was announced but this was soon delayed by a forthcoming recession which plunged BA into massive losses.