Category:British European Airways (BEA)

1965: Dinky Toys No.708 [image info]

British European Airways (BEA) were founded in 1946 as the UK's sole contract-holder for scheduled internal flights and international flights to Europe. Flights to the rest oo the world were handled by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)

BEA essentially took over from Railway Air Services, which had been run by the Big Four railway companies, and absorbed the RAS staff and services.

RAS (like the railways) had been run under centralised government control during the war as an effective government monopoly, after which it had some months operating as a normal company until 1946 business again, until 1946, when its conversion to BEA preceded the similar conversion of the railway companies (which had also operated as a single government unit during the war) to British Railways in 1948.