British Overseas Airways Corporation - Introduction of Jets

Introduction of Jets

In May 1952 BOAC was the first airline to introduce a passenger jet into airline service. This was the de Havilland Comet which flew via Nairobi to Johannesburg and via the Far East to Tokyo. All Comet 1 aircraft were grounded in April 1954 after four Comets crashed, the last two being BOAC aircraft at altitude. Examination of the wreckage recovered from the Mediterranean sea-bed and observation of a sample fuselage in a pressurization test-tank at Farnborough revealed that the pressurization/depressurization cycles of airline operation could cause fatigue cracks in the thin aluminium alloy skin of the Comet leading to the skins ripping away explosively at altitude and disintegration of the aircraft.

Later jet airliners including the revised Comet 4 were designed to be fail-safe: in the event of for example a skin-failure due to cracking the damage would be localized and not catastrophic. In October 1958 BOAC operated the first transatlantic Jet service with the larger and longer-range Comet 4. In the 1950s turbine powered airliners were developing rapidly, and the Comet and the seriously delayed Bristol Britannia were rendered obsolescent by the flight of the swept-wing Boeing 367-80 (707 prototype) in 1954.

Revenue Passenger-Kilometers, scheduled flights only, in millions

Year	Traffic
1947	456
1950	845
1955	1610
1960	3765
1965	7029
1969	9682
1971	11444

Source:ICAO Digest of Statistics for 1947-55, IATA World Air Transport Statistics 1960-1971

In 1953 Vickers had started building the swept wing VC-7/V-1000 with Conway engines, but BOAC short-sightedly decided the Britannia and Comet 4 would be adequate for its purposes, and when the military version of the V-1000 was cancelled in 1955 the 75% complete prototype was scrapped. In October 1956 BOAC ordered 15 Boeing 707s with Rolls-Royce Conway engines that were briefly the most economical commercial engine option, which entered service in 1960. (The British Airwothiness Authorities insisted on tail-fin modifications which Boeing applied to all 707s). Sir Giles Guthrie, who took charge of BOAC in 1964, preferred Boeing aircraft for economic reasons, and indeed BOAC began turning a profit in the late 1960s. After a row in Parliament the government instructed BOAC to purchase 17 Vickers VC-10 aircraft from a 30-aircraft order which Guthrie had cancelled. The VC-10 had higher operating costs than the 707, largely due to BOAC's demands for the aircraft to have excellent hot and high performance for Commonwealth (African/Asian)routes, but the larger Super VC-10 was a success with American passengers on the North Atlantic and was profitable. The next major order of Boeing aircraft was for 11 747-100s. On 22 April 1970 BOAC received its first 747, but the aircraft did not enter commercial service until 14 April 1971 due to BOAC's inability to settle crewing and pay rates with the British Air Line Pilots' Association. BOAC's successor British Airways later became the largest Boeing customer outside North America.