from around the world", comparing their display to the patronizing attitude of the colonial era British Empire. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher showed her displeasure at the designs by covering one of the new tailfins (Animals and Trees) on a model 747 with tissue paper. She declared, "We fly the British flag, not these awful things" in 1997. Thatcher also indicated with these fins the airline would lose its identity. Amongst BA passengers, the highest rate of disapproval for the new designs was registered by business travelers between North America and Great Britain. 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. Review of use 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) was used on Concorde only. By 1999, BA had repainted around half its fleet (170 aircraft) in its new colours but then Chief Executive, Robert 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 Landor design) would receive a variant of Concorde's Union Flag design. The announcement was timed to divert some attention from Virgin's relaunch. Chris Holt, the head of design management at BA who led the Utopia Project, resigned in October 1999. A single 747-400 leased from British Airways to Qantas in 2000, registered as VH-NLH whilst operating in Australia (formerly G-BNLH), wore a hybrid livery complete with the Denmark Wings tail design. Under service with Qantas, the British Airways titles were removed and replaced with Qantas' own, but the remainder of the livery was left unchanged. Finally in May 2001 the new Chief Executive, Rod Eddington, announced the entire fleet would receive the new Union flag livery. Eddington argued that while an attempt to increase the airline's appeal was not a bad thing, the exercise hurt the image of the carrier among its core customers – those that are attracted by the British identity, which the ethnic tailfins diluted somewhat. Eddington's opinions were echoed by Adam Hill, founder and partner of the advertising agency Designate, who stated that "name and logo are just small parts of the puzzle: to customers, the pride