British United Air Ferries Officer Lesley Hardy became Britain's first airliner flown by an all-female crew. On 1 January 1979, BAF transferred its entire scheduled operation including associated aircraft and staff to British Island Airways (BIA). Following British Airways's decision to withdraw from its loss-making regional routes and to retire its Vickers Viscount turboprop fleet, BAF acquired the entire 18-strong fleet along with the spares inventory during the early 1980s. This acquisition made it the world's largest Viscount operator at the time. As a result of the changes the airline underwent in the late 1970s and early 1980s, BAF mainly concentrated on leasing, charter
Airliner delivered to the nascent airline, Aircraft Transport and Travel, which used the first aircraft for pleasure flying, and on 25 August 1919, it inaugurated the first scheduled international airline service from London to Paris. One aircraft was sold to the River Plate Aviation Company in Argentina, to operate a cross-river service between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Meanwhile, the competing Vickers converted its successful WWI bomber, the Vickers Vimy, into a civilian version, the Vimy Commercial. It was redesigned with a larger-diameter fuselage (largely of spruce plywood), and first flew from the Joyce Green airfield in Kent on 13 April 1919.