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British Airways (BA) journey in India started when the first survey/proving flight, funded by Imperial Airways, a precursor to the present-day BA, left London for India on November 10, 1924, and finished its trip to India on March 17, the following year.
The return flight to the UK took 210 hours. Today, the distance between various points in India and the UK is about nine hours.
Imperial Airways was created in 1924 as the British government’s “chosen instrument of air travel” by the amalgamation of the Instone Air Line Ltd., Handley Page Air Transport Ltd., Daimler Airway, and British Marine Air Navigation Co. Ltd.
Imperial began services from London (Croydon) to European destinations and pioneered routes to Africa, the Middle East, and India.
In 1931, the length of the Imperial Airways India service was reduced to five and a half days, and night flights were introduced in the Baghdad-Basra sector.
Approximately six years later, on July 1, 1937, the Empire Air Mail Service Scheme was extended to India. The through mail for India alone on this date weighed approximately half a tonne.
Approximately four years later, on November 25, 1947, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) began a weekly London-Delhi service that flew via Tripoli, Cairo, Basra, and Karachi (which was then part of undivided India). India and Pakistan were partitioned in 1947 to form two separate countries.
In 1948, following the British withdrawal from India and the Partition of India into Pakistan and India, the British Overseas Air Corporation operated ferries between the two countries, carrying 43,500 civilians.
Between January 20 and March 6, 1961, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, and Duke of Edinburgh flew to Delhi by BOAC Britannia 312 G-AOV for their first tour of India.
BA was formed in April 1974 when British European Airlines (BEA) and BOAC were combined.
In October 1983, the airline doubled the twice-a-week service between Heathrow and Chennai in South India, which operated via Mumbai or Dubai.
In the summer of 1985, BA started operating a daily flight on the London to Delhi sector using a Boeing 747 and Lockheed Tristars. Three years later, it celebrated its 1000th flight to Chennai.
In October 2005, BA’s weekly flights to India increased to 35 from 19 earlier.
In the winter of 2014, the airline started operating a double-daily service to Delhi from Heathrow using Boeing 777 and Boeing 747 aircraft.
In March 2014, the airline began flying the 787 between London and Hyderabad, a state in South India. Five years later, Hyderabad also became an international crew base.
The airline will add a new daily flight between Delhi and London Heathrow from 20 April 2025. This will increase the airline’s schedule across India to 63 weekly flights across five cities. It currently operates 56 flights a week—three a day from Mumbai, double daily from Delhi, and a daily service from Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
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