Three Boeing 747s and an Airbus A319 sat alongside another A319 in the current Chatham Dockyard livery.

Since repainting, the 747s have travelled to destinations including New York, Cape Town, Dubai and Lagos, while the BEA liveried Airbus has flown to cities including Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Milan, Zurich and Amsterdam.

Alex Cruz, British Airways’ chairman and chief executive, said: “The excitement and pride that we’ve witnessed from customers and colleagues as these heritage liveries, which we painted to mark our centenary, have flown around the globe has been unparalleled.

“Social media has been fired up with images from travellers all over the world when they’ve spotted the aircraft and as some 50,000 people have now flown on them since they arrived back in the fleet we wanted to capture a special photo to share with them.”

Arranging them for the photo took more than two hours, the airline said.