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.
Freddie Mercury of people around the world". On 5 September 2016, the 70th anniversary of Mercury's birth, asteroid 17473 Freddiemercury was named after him. Issuing the certificate of designation to the "charismatic singer", Joel Parker of the Southwest Research Institute added: "Freddie Mercury sang, 'I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky' - and now that is even more true than ever before." The airline Norwegian painted the tail fin of two of its aircraft with a portrait of Mercury to mark what would have been his 71st birthday in September 2017. Mercury is one of the company's six "British tail fin