Originally Posted by
renfrew
Technically British Airways traces it's roots back to 1919.
This is the correct version. A range of independents started up in 1919 and were merged together in 1924 to Imperial Airways, which became the mainstream UK carrier, with some government support. A further range of independents were merged together in 1935 and took the British Airways name, an independent and unsubsidised operator on lesser routes, which became the second largest UK airline. In 1940 these two were merged into BOAC at government behest, but the registered BA name was kept by the company unused. BOAC was split up after WW2 into BEA and BOAC, two nationalised companies and then in 1974 these were merged back together again and the BA name was reinstated for the combined operation. It didn't become privately owned until 1987.