FT: “BA boss pledges to rebuild its reputation for premium service”

The British Airways boss, Sean Boyle, who took over the airline from Alex Cruz (remember him?) in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, gave an interview to Financial Times that was published yesterday.

Mr. Boyle intends to restore BA’s reputation as a “premium” airline over competitors such as EasyJet and Ryanair and wow passengers again.

You can access Financial Times BA article here.

Here are some excerpts:

“There is room for optimism that we are on the way out” of the pandemic, and that the airline needed to “redefine” its place in the airline world, including a heavy emphasis on service and the passenger experience.

“Putting the premium proposition into the heart of what we do is going to be key,” he told the Financial Times at BA’s headquarters near Heathrow. “We want people to come off a British Airways flight and talk about it as if it’s something different.”

Something different?

And:

But it is a challenge successive BA bosses struggled to meet because of conflicting pressures of trying to compete with low-cost carriers in economy class, while maintaining standards for business and first class passengers.

Impossible.

And:

“Any airline can go out and buy products off the shelf and put them on a plane. It’s actually the confidence and the style and the intimacy that we deliver in service that is going to be a differentiator,” he said.

They have fired all the experienced crew members who could have provided dedicated service replaced by new hires paid slave wages. How they could provide premium service is a mystery to me.

Conclusion

I have been BA’s Gold Guest List (GGL) member for years and have had on/off access to Concorde Room at London’s Heathrow. It is not, however, my preferred airline to anywhere.

Executive Club, with its lifetime Gold (Oneworld Emerald) at 35,000 Tier Points keeps me occasionally flying the airline with Upgrade Vouchers and award availability overrides that both work well. However, I am not a fan of transiting at Heathrow that often involves a bus ride between Terminals 3 and 5.

Flying FROM Terminal 5 is a rather pleasant experience with the First Wing and direct lounge access, although you need to pass through the First Class Lounge (Honolulu Golds) on your way to Concorde Room.

BA’s first-class is a decent Business Class product, but the airline should not pretend it to be “true” premium service when you serve passengers Chicken Tikka Masala.

The airline is a reasonable option for those who wish to fly to/from London on direct flights. But why would you fly them if a connection or two are involved, if not for the price?

I genuinely hope that BA’s new boss would make the airline a Premium experience again, but I doubt this would be the case.