June 7th 2019 Update: British Airways have removed 747's from domestic schedule. Passengers have been emailed asking if they would still like to travel or get a refund.

This summer, on August 25th, British Airways has scheduled its Boeing 747s on domestic routes. The carrier normally uses a mix of Airbus A319, A320, and A321 aircraft for these (very) short-haul routes.

As always flight schedules can change last minute, so we recommend you book these flights with caution incase of equipment change. With no official announcements from British Airways, this schedule could just be a mistake.

The three routes

Right now, the 747's are scheduled on Sunday, August 25th on the following routes:

  • BA1326/1327 - London-Newcastle
  • BA1386/1391 - London-Manchester
  • BA1482/1487 - London-Glasgow

While you'd normally step onboard a British Airways 747 to go on a 10+ hour flight from London to Cape Town, these routes are obviously very, very domestic. These flights are timetabled to take 70-90 minutes to fly, but in reality flights could be as short as 35 minutes.

The London-Newcastle Route. Photo: Simple Flying
The London-Manchester Route. Photo: Simple Flying
The London-Glasgow Route. Photo: Simple Flying

As British Airways is celebrating their 100th anniversary, each flight will likely be flown by one of the 747s painted in a different retro livery. The three 747 liveries are:

Their photos are below:

The BA 747 in Negus Livery: Tom Boon - Simple Flying
The BA Landor Livery. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The BA 747 in BOAC Livery: Tom Boon - Simple Flying

100th anniversary:

The fact that British Airways has scheduled 747's on the 25th of August is very special. It's their 100th anniversary and the flights could make up part of their celebrations:

On August 25, 1919, British Airways’ forerunner company, Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited (AT&T), launched the world's first daily international scheduled air service between London and Paris.

To celebrate the big birthday, the airline's website says: "We will be celebrating our landmark birthday by celebrating Britain."

The centenary webpage also showcases "truly inspiring Brits who embody the best of our homeland...They are the people who represent the values we want to celebrate and who make Britain the creative, open-minded, pioneering and welcoming place it is today."

These celebrities include Gary Oldman, Jane Goodall, and the founders of BrewDog beer. Could we be seeing any of these celebrities participating on August 25th?

British Airways has also opened its archive collection to the public sharing never-before-seen memories for the first time. These memories are "of key moments from its 100-year history". The archive can be accessed by clicking here.

Conclusion:

Overall we are very excited about British Airways 100th anniversary. It will be very interesting to see if these scheduled flights actually make up part of their 100th anniversary celebrations or wether the schedule is just a mistake.

Time will tell!