As part of its centenary celebrations, UK flag carrier British Airways is painting four aircraft into heritage liveries. The fourth and final has been announced as the ‘Negus’ livery, which the airline wore from its inception in 1974 until 1980.
The three other so-called ‘retro jets’ are already in service. Boeing 747-400, G-BYGC, wears the BOAC livery, Airbus A319, G-EUPJ, sports the livery of BEA, and G-BNLY wears the Landor livery, the successor to Negus.
The Negus livery aircraft will be a Boeing 747-400, registered G-CIVB, which is already at the IAC paint shop in Dublin, but its reveal date is yet to be announced. As with the other liveries, the aircraft will remain in its retro scheme until it retires, which in the case of G-CIVB, will be in 2022.
Controversially, the Negus livery features a lower case ‘a’ on the ‘British Airways’ titles, which was designed to be stacked underneath the word British, as it was displayed on most airline ephemera. On aircraft, however, the words were displayed horizontally.
Matt is a Berlin-based writer and reporter for International Flight Network. Originally from London, he has been involved in aviation from a very young age and has a particular focus on aircraft safety, accidents and technical details.
