Saltire74

As flying for most is a bit sparse at the moment and spurred on by the Historic Routes thread Historic BA routes I thought it would be interesting see what inaugural flight/routes fellow BA Flyertalk members have taken.

I know a few on here will have been on many so my ONE will be rather low on the scoreboard

I flew on the inaugural BA flight from LHR to Turks and Caicos PLS (Providenciales) on a 767-300ER in 2000/2001. My flight history on my BAEC page is not functioning so can’t give the exact date. This was the first of a weekly direct (Sunday) service to the islands. A lot of passengers on the flight were happy that they no longer had to route through MIA.

On arrival we were met by a full brass band and the Governor in full regalia shaking the hands of each passenger as they disembarked followed by someone giving us all a small flower (I suppose indigenous to Turks & Caicos).

What took me by surprise at the time was that the apron looked as if it could not take any other aircraft at the same time as it was that small. I imagine it has been upgraded in the last 20 years. A place I would love to visit for a holiday.

destone

LHR-AUS

escape2sun

My only inaugural flight was the BA45 LHR-CPT on 01/05/2014, when we arrived in CPT the plane was given a water cannon salute, that's in the days just before the Cape Town drought started.

BA were trialling an extra flight to CPT 3x weekly, and the cost of the flights were £1,000 cheaper than the BA59/58 rotation for CW. The BA45/44 rotation was dropped at the end of Summer in 2014

ENTP

LHR-NQY-LHR. We were two hours late due to a faulty engine. The fudge handed out at NQY and getting papped by the local press just about made up for the Kafkaesque protocols in the terminal on the b2b.

Flying Doctor

LHR-KUL and was also invited to the launch party at the UK Ambassador's residence in KL. We also got the water cannons etc on that.
LHR-SCL - no water cannons, very muted and also fun when trying to go through immigration and staff not realising that BA actually had started flying to SCL!
FD.

corporate-wage-slave

SCL was during a drought, so the firefighters held up a huge Union flag by the apron instead, there is a photo of it in the SCL inaugural thread - there are quite a few threads on inaugurals in this forum. Plus for 787s I think BA insist on no water canons to avoid accidental damage. The ambassador's party is a common feature of inaugurals, the crew generally get invited, Tehran was the one I remember due to the large armed compound around the faiirly substantial set of buildings involved. I've done about 40 - 50 inaugurals.

bhbloke

The short-lived LCY-KEF rotation.

I think Karfa was due onboard too, but he found something better to do and cried off.

stevie

Not BA - but the first direct China - Hong Kong flight maybe 20 years ago.
A 2.30am departure PVG-HKG on CX.
Lots of fanfare but I slept walk through it.

Globaliser

A long time ago, I was planning a trip to NYC when BA added one more departure from JFK to LHR, leaving later than all of the others, starting on the day that I needed to fly back. The later the flight, the easier to get some sleep on board, so I picked it. The only note of its significance was that when the flight was called for the first time in the lounge, the words "the inaugural" were added immediately before "BA182" (or whatever the flight number was) - and that was it.

alex67500

Surely you meant KARFAesque?

Schwann

I was on the inaugural A380 passenger flight from LHR-FRA, where the CSM welcomed the "intrepid Flyertalkers".

shefgab

BA LHR-JMK
LH LGW-FRA

Not a word about the inaugural mentioned on either flight.

yellow_peril

I did the double of the inaugural A380 (02AUG13 BA902 LHR FRA) and B787 (09AUG13 BA911 LHR ARN)
I think I can say that I suitably disgraced myself!
FRA was an 06:45 departure in Y with a 18:55 return (again on the A380) in J and I pretended to work during that day but actually had a great time in FRA, didn't realise there was a tour and I was lucky enough to have great company on it.
ARN was a B2B (out in J, back in Y) and I have never seen a group of flyertalkers move so quickly to get to the lounge for a drink (stood around a plane if I remember correctly) before the return flight!

Schwann

Maybe you can remember then... do you remember someone from the crew inadvertently saying that the LHR-FRA flight was a codeshare with Air France in one of the "during boarding" announcements?

Met a few FlyerTalker's that day (including BotB who guested me in for my first ever BA GF lounge visit).. I may have even met you.

Starship73

I was on the inaugural A380 service to Singapore, 29th October 2014