British Airways CEO álex Cruz on 100 years, Expansion at Heathrow, and Supersonic Aircraft

A truly captivating and inspirational talk on the past 100 years of Britain's flagship carrier, and what we can expect from them by 2119.

British Airways (BA) CEO álex Cruz is excited for the airline to reveal how they plan to celebrate the past 100 years, which began on 9th April this year, with the reveal of four retro liveried aircraft, lined up together alongside an A319 in the current Chatham Dockyard design. Plans include a few flyovers and a digital archive that will be full of content to be made public for the first time.

He spoke on the much-anticipated expansion of Heathrow and its third runway, with hopes that this will enable the airline to pursue dreams of more routes into North America, Asia, and Africa. Growth that will not be possible without increasing the airport's capacity. - He believes Not for the next seven to eight years at least.

During a very engaging Q&A session with álex, the question "will we see a supersonic aircraft again" was raised. álex revealed that out of the main three projects around the world, he is very confident that one will be successful, and out of this will be a much more fuel efficient, better designed and perhaps faster supersonic aircraft.

Finally, when asked what kept the CEO up at night, he surprised a completely full auditorium of industry professionals, CEO's and general enthusiasts by saying, the single greatest threat to British Airways that keeps me up at night is... 'Us'! Putting aside safety (which as a priority is second to none), the BA team is the biggest threat to their business as they are what keeps the airline growing and constantly improving - we need to be more customer focused, work better, faster, and listen to each other. Without this, the airline would not be where it is now from the then known Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited (AT&T) in 1919.

Interesting mention: BA has engaged universities across the country with a challenge to design an aircraft that can fly 300 passengers, for five hours, with no emissions. Anyone that wants to take up the challenge should contact him, as he apparently answers as many emails as possible, and gets quite a few due to his email address being very easy to guess.