MarkFlies

Video on the introduction of BA’s Boeing 757 on ITV’s “Wish You Were Here” from 1983.

Enjoy.

BAeuro

Can’t believe the 757 only had 189 seats when the A321neo has 220.

BOH

....but those seat colours

gw76

At least they looked a tad more padded and comfortable. Amazing in charter config they took 235. Nice to see GLA make an appearance. Couldn't tell what uniform crew were wearing.
Judith Chalmers and her fur... not out of place from Dynasty.

mikem004

Those seats look comfortable. And passengers were thinner back then.
So the travel experience in Economy was perfectly acceptable.

Ancient Observer

The amount of padding has a limited relationship with comfort. BMW established this back in the 90s. Their 5 series had armchair-like seats. (E34) Their new 5 series, E39, 1995 on, had thinner seats but was much more comfortable. It had a "better" type of polyurethane filling, giving more/better support. However, some folk never liked the firmer ride given by BMWs.
A decent plane seat needs to be properly researched. The worst of both worlds is a thin seat with cheap filling. Some 1990s Fords achieved this!!

1Aturnleft

Well she was probably chilly. All those exotic assignments and to then get a day trip to Glasgow. Mind you all the passengers looked well dressed for winter too!

Being 83 this would have been the "fly the flag" era uniform. So big union jack neck scarfs for women and dickie bows and blue serving jackets for men.

Looks like most of the to camera shots (when talking about Eastern Airlines getting 70mpg) were taken in the front section between doors 1-2. All the seats are same puke orange. Whereas further back they appear to alternate every few rows from blue to orange. Perhaps this front section was the fore-runner to Club Europe when operated within Europe as it looks to be the same colour as Super Club colour scheme of the era.

polemi

I was working for Rolls-Royce when the 757 launched. Boeing brought the launch aircraft to do circuits over Derby site and they let us do a walk through at East Mids in the afternoon. I cannot remember who the launch customer was (I have photos somewhere).

Still one of my favourites.

1Aturnleft

Eastern Airlines and BA placed the original 757-200 orders in 1979. Eastern began commercial service on January 1, 1983. BA followed in February.

BOH

It was both Eastern and BA, both opted for the RR RB211-535 over the competing P&W offering and I believe this was the first time a Boeing airliner had ever had a non-US engine as the launch one. 757 was a huge success for RR who finished up with the highest number of either customers or airframes (can't remember which way round it was). Of mainstream legacy carriers I recall only BA and Iberia operated them in any volume in Europe, a few charter carriers did and both AY and EI operated a very small number late on....but none of the other biggies like AF, KL, SK, LH, AZ ever operated them.

Lover those lightly loaded take-offs in a 757

kaizenflying

Judith’s fur coat must have used up all the space in the Club wardrobe!

VSLover

haha this is great. the video cuts to "where is judith now" was a bit jarring. like ok now you will watch judith in row one...WAIT now its judith lounging around in the cockpit...WAIT now its judith standing.

classic judith really.

BOH

In the days when a replacement aircraft had MORE legroom than the one it replaced. 3 inches more than the Trident it seems

Love Judith's Queens English pronunciation of "Rolls" when she talks about the Rolls-Royce engines

Agent69

And nearly all male passengers were wearing a tie. Those were the days

FamilyOf6

I just googled this particular frame (G-BIKB) to see where it ended up. Interesting to read it was involved in an incident in '96:

The aircraft was parked on stand C22 at London Heathrow with a tug positioned under the nose for push back. The tug driver was accompanied in the cab by a work experience student. Prior to engine start the tug driver left the student unsupervised in the cab to deal with a problem with the tow bar. During this time the student inadvertently operated the cab height mechanism raising the cab and bringing it into contact the aircraft fuselage forward of the nose landing gear causing minor damage. The passengers were disembarked and the aircraft withdrawn from service.

I expect that was the last time BA let a work experience student near a tug!