Surprising and delighting the customer is rule number one in hospitality. This has been lacking at British Airways recently. But last night, after three and a half torrid years of battling post-pandemic workforce crises, supply chain problems and hell at Heathrow, BA CEO Sean Doyle raised a glass of Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame champagne to brighter days. At a glitzy “in the skies” party on the 42nd floor of London’s Leadenhall skyscraper, he promised “the most important transformation in our history”.
He and his top team will invest £7 billion in new aircraft and improved cabins, lounges and IT over the next two years. Around £5 billion will go towards new aircraft and cabins. This year, a dozen hangar-fresh Airbus A320s and A321s for short distances and A350s and Boeing 787s for long distances will be delivered. New leather seats will be introduced on short-haul Airbus aircraft. All long-haul jets will receive the new Club Suite business class seat and there will be a new first class cabin on the double-decker Airbus A380 superjumbo. BA has not yet said whether the first class will move from the lower deck to the upper deck.
Nearly £1 billion will be spent on new IT systems, including a more personalized website and mobile phone app, to replace what one executive jokes is “1870s technology”. BA has suffered a dozen IT meltdowns in the past decade. Within months, all its IT services will be ‘cloud-based’ rather than running on old servers in BA offices, which should help prevent outages.
From next month, members of the airline’s Executive Club loyalty program will be able to send free WhatsApp and text messages on all BA jets that have Wi-Fi. Most planes do that now and by next year they will all have Wi-Fi. Better connectivity between aircraft and BA’s bases will help cabin crew resolve issues, such as lost luggage, before passengers reach their destinations. When flights are delayed or cancelled, BA will soon be able to text hotel and food vouchers to customers and give them new tools to rebook online with BA or, if they prefer, with other airlines.
Lounges with more wood and softer lighting will be built in Dubai and Miami. The design, created in collaboration with Ashley Dowell of architectural firm Gensler, will be introduced at Heathrow Terminal 5, BA’s home base, including in the Arrivals Lounge. Next month the airline will launch its first splashy television advert since the pandemic under the new tagline ‘A British Original’. A new safety video will follow in May. (It remains to be seen whether Robert Peston will survive the cut).
Doyle also announced the return of two routes suspended during the pandemic: London to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, from next winter. As well as investing in new frills, Doyle acknowledged last night that he is “fixing the basics”, particularly punctuality. BA has the money to spend. Parent company IAG has more than doubled its operating profit in 2023 to a record €3.5 billion.
After more than a decade of relentlessly negative headlines about ‘Broken Airways’ and passengers ‘flying ABBA’ (anyone but British Airways), Doyle deserves credit for recognizing that BA needs to do better and for putting its money where its mouth is puts it on his mouth. The problem is that long-suffering travelers – and journalists – have heard it all before.
In 2017, I was one of a handful of reporters with whom Doyle’s predecessor, Alex Cruz, took a private joyride on a new BA Dreamliner from Gatwick to Heathrow, across Britain and back to London. Two years later, I accompanied Cruz again on the maiden flight of the snazzy new Airbus A350 with BA’s new Club Suite from London to Madrid. Each time, Cruz promised that huge sums of money would be spent on new planes, new food, new IT and new lounges, helping BA regain its golden position as the world’s favorite airline. It failed every time.
In fact, things got worse. At the 2023 Telegraph Travel Awards, voted on by almost 30,000 readers, BA finished 12th in the short-haul airline category, behind EasyJet (after taking top spot in 2016), and 23rd in the long-haul category, well behind fifth-place Virgin.
Which? magazine last year described BA as “a thoroughly mediocre airline” in a review of the best and worst airlines. This year’s survey stated: “Virgin Atlantic has long surpassed its transatlantic rival British Airways, with great customer service, comfortable seats, tasty food and high-quality entertainment systems.”
There are some reasons for optimism that things might be different this time. Doyle’s new hires include Calum Laming, who enjoys five-star service thanks to his time at Abu Dhabi’s national airline, Etihad. Waiting times for telephone calls are getting shorter thanks to the opening of a new call center in Delhi. Food on board in all classes and in the business and first class lounges is better. There are more and better films and box sets on board. BA’s World Traveler Plus cabin, as BA calls premium economy, is one of the best in the sky.
In addition, the Club Suite is a big improvement on the old ‘back to front’ business seats, new security scanners are being introduced at Heathrow T5, meaning we no longer have to take liquids, laptops and iPads out of our hand luggage, and the new BA ads will re-inject some much-needed British humor and eccentricity.
But major challenges remain. The new short-haul seats are comfortable, but legroom is comparable to Ryanair’s. Plans to reintroduce free tea and coffee on many short-haul routes have been ditched. Cruz has shrunk the galleys so much that there isn’t enough room to make free hot drinks for everyone.
Economy class on BA’s long-haul aircraft lags behind the competition. There are no plans to copy Virgin and Etihad and many US airlines by introducing economy seats with extra legroom in the front of the economy cabin. “This is shortsighted,” says Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research.
Frequent flyers say service remains inconsistent. “You can have a great experience one day and a mediocre one the next,” is a common complaint. Only in 2027 will BA’s entire fleet, including the twelve A380s, have the new Club Suite. By then, new business class offerings from Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways and Emirates will likely have a big head start.
The main lounges in T5 are seriously aging. And while a new first suite is welcome, it’s still years away and BA’s main competitors can do a much better job of pampering their highest-paying customers by offering car transfers to planes from their lounges, which are sometimes located in separate, dedicated buildings at the airport . , complete with their own security checkpoint and duty-free shops.
Doyle’s future – as well as BA’s – depends on whether the new £7 billion investment will turn up its nose. He might have been able to blame the Covid hangover for his shaky start as CEO, but that won’t work anymore. It’s make or break time.