British Airways ethnic liveries was used on Concorde only. By 1999, BA had repainted around 170 aircraft in its new colours but then Chief Executive, Bob Ayling, announced a review of this process. The aircraft already repainted would keep the new designs, but the remainder of the fleet (still showing the pre-1997 union flag design) would receive a variant of Concorde's Union Flag design. The announcement was timed to divert some attention from Virgin's relaunch. A single 747-400 leased from British Airways to Qantas in 2000, registered as VH-NLH whilst operating in Australia, wore a hybrid livery complete with the Denmark "Wings" tail design.
British Airways ethnic liveries by covering one of the new tailfins on a model 747 with tissue paper. She declared, "We fly the British flag, not these awful things." Thatcher also indicated with these fins the airline would lose its identity. Virgin Atlantic took advantage of the controversy by applying a Union flag scheme to the front end of its aircraft. In their own 1999 relaunch, the flag was also applied to the vertical winglets of Virgin Atlantic's aircraft. While the majority of the designs were applied to a variety of aircraft models, one scheme (the stylised version of the Chatham Dockyard Union Flag)