British Airways Signs As Official Airline for 2012

London 2012 is halfway to completing its senior sponsorship program after British Airways was yesterday confirmed as the games' official airline partner in a deal understood to be worth £40m.

BA is the fourth tier-one sponsor to sign up, joining Adidas, EDF Energy and Lloyds TSB in deals worth close to £200m. BA's deal gives it marketing rights to the 2012 brand and the airline will undertake community projects around the Games as well as providing travel bursaries to aspiring athletes. BA fought off competition for the airline slot from Virgin, which has a commercial arrangement with UK Sport, the body that funds elite athletes.

London hopes to have four more tier-one sponsors signed up before the Beijing Olympics begin. The commercial programm for 2012, which is forecast to generate £650m, is significantly ahead of that of previous host cities. No other games have had a commercial deal partner in place before the preceding games began.

Lord Coe, the organizing committee Locog's chairman, said he was delighted BA was supporting the Games: "BA took me to my first international event, to the Moscow Olympics in 1980 which was not straightforward, they took me to my second Olympics too [in Los Angeles] and they were with us during the bid, so we welcome back a great friend to the table."

Coe said he was unconcerned at a number of venue changes because of cost constraints and objections from governing bodies. The temporary venue for the fencing events is to be scrapped because of cost and the mountain bike track has been rejected by the International Cycling Union. The aquatic center is set to cost three times the original forecast.