LONDON – After a Boeing 747-400 was painted in a retro livery last week, an Airbus A319 from British Airways now also gets a historic livery. The aircraft will get the paintjob in Shannon in the colors of British European Airways, starting this weekend.

This year the British airline is painting a series of aircraft in retro colors, as part of the company’s unofficial 100th anniversary, which has a history dating back to 1919. In fact, British Airways itself is only 45 years old. KLM is the only airline in the world, which has been operating under the same name since 1919.

The A319, with registration G-EUPJ, will be ready for use on European flights next month. The new colors of BEA were originally worn between 1959 and 1968. The livery on the A319 differs slightly from the original colors; the wings remain gray, while they used to be red, as you can see in the last photo on the De Havilland Comet.

(Top photo: By Arpingstone – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2864028)

(Last photo: By BEA_De_Havilland_DH-106_Comet_4B_Manteufel.jpg: Ralf Manteufelderivative work: Altair78 (talk) – BEA_De_Havilland_DH-106_Comet_4B_Manteufel.jpg, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17868134)