Category Archives: British Airways

British Airways moves to the next phase of its lounge reopening plan

British Airways has made this announcement:

British Airways reopens its Concorde Room at New York’s JFK airport and Heathrow Terminal 5
To coincide the airline has partnered with a renowned mixologist, Mr Lyan, to create new bespoke cocktail menus available in its lounges, with two exclusive signature serves
Other enhancements include ‘surprise and delight’ lounge access for selected Bronze BA executive card holders and the introduction of ‘Forty Winks’ sleep pods in the Concorde Rooms at JFK & Heathrow
The airline will continue to gradually reopen lounges across its network

British Airways has today announced that it will move to the next phase of its lounge reopening plan, as it is set to once again open the doors to its Concorde Room (specifically for those flying in First) at JFK and Heathrow on September 1, with a number of other enhancements in store for customers.

The reopening of the airline’s two exclusive lounges, both of which have remained closed since March 2020, follows swiftly in the footsteps of the airline’s flagship US lounge, that started to welcome back eligible customers from the start of August.

To coincide with both Concorde Rooms opening their doors once again, British Airways will be introducing a new exciting cocktail menu, created exclusively for the airline by Mr Lyan (Ryan Chetiyawardana) (below), a figurehead in the global cocktail scene. Driven by sustainability and his love for experimenting with new ingredients, he has carefully created an array of elegant cocktails for customers to enjoy depending on their individual tastes and preferences, ahead of their flight.

The new menu contains seven cocktails, with two unique British Airways serves designed in celebration of the airline’s heritage and iconic colleagues. The two special cocktails are named the Barton and Lawford after Lynne Barton, the first female British Airways pilot, and Bill Lawford, the first ever British Airways pilot in 1919. The menu has been designed with a focus on the best of British seasonal ingredients that specifically embrace ‘in-flight’ and wind pollinated flavors. The Barton and Lawford will also be available in the Galleries Club lounges and First lounge.

Customers in the Concorde Room will continue to receive table service across the whole lounge, but visitors to other lounges will also benefit from using the airline’s new digital ‘Your Menu’ service which allows them to order food from the menu directly to their seat in the lounge with the use of a QR code close to them.

Elsewhere the airline will also be surprising a number of its Bronze Executive card holders on a daily basis in September and October with the taste of Silver Card benefits. British Airways will be inviting those who are close to the next threshold to use one of the airline’s lounge at Heathrow with a guest.

British Airways customers using the airline’s Concorde Room will also have access to the new ‘Forty Winks’ EnergyPods, to get some pre-flight shuteye if they wish to. Concorde Room customers will be able book an EnergyPod via dedicated hosts, request a time to be woken and choose a hot beverage to enjoy after their rest. Water and hot towels will be provided to add to the refreshing awakening experience.

Other enhancements to the customer experience also include the introduction of ‘Best of British menus’ on board the airline’s flights, focusing on seasonal ingredients and British provenance, taking customers on a culinary journey across the British Isles. British Airways recently announced that the first edition of the carefully curated menus will include a traditional roast with all the trimmings.

Back to the future: British Airways is planning a possible low-fare “BA Lite” subsidiary to compete with low-fare airlines at Gatwick

British Airways is reportedly exploring a possible new low-cost subsidiary at London Gatwick to relaunch operations at the airport.

The proposed subsidiary would compete against other low-fare carriers at LGW such as easyJet and Ryanair.

BA has explored this option in the past.

Go Fly Limited (stylized as Go) was founded by British Airways and started operations on May 22, 1998. Go operated low-fare flights from London’s Stansted Airport to destinations in Europe.

The subsidiary was purchased from BA, by management in a buy-out backed by the private equity in June 2001.

In March 2003 the airline was closed out.

Go Fly aircraft slide show:

British Airways carries home the Team GB athletes

British Airways made this announcement:

Over the last two weeks British Airways has proudly been flying Team GB home from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, with the final flight carrying Olympians due to land at 13:10 (UK local) this afternoon, Monday 9 August.

The airline has welcomed tens of competitors across a wide range of sports back to the United Kingdom after an incredible Tokyo Games, with Team GB matching their overall medal haul of 65 from London 2012, when they competed on home turf. This morning British Airways has announced that to celebrate the team’s success, it will be giving all medal winners an executive card status to match the medal that they won in the Games.

On board the final flight back to the UK are eight gold, nine silver and three bronze medals, weighing a combined weight of 10.298 kilograms. The remaining athletes flying home with British Airways are from the boxing, track cycling, modern pentathlon and the athletic teams.

Among the incredible team members on the flight are Laura Kenny, Team GB’s most successful female athlete who carried the Union flag in Sunday’s Closing Ceremony and her husband, Jason Kenny, the most successful British Olympian after he won his seventh Olympic gold medal in the men’s keirin.

Once the aircraft has landed, the athletes will be led through by British Airways’ staff to the arrivals hall in Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport to reunite with friends and family after spending so long apart.

British Airways is also the proud airline partner of ParalympicsGB and will be carrying the athletes to and from the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games which starts on Tuesday 24 August.

British Airways has a long-standing history in supporting national sporting events and teams. The airline has been the proud airline partner to Team GB and Paralympics GB since 2008 and is currently the Principal Partner to Twickenham Stadium, Official Airline Partner to England Rugby. Today, the airline is also flying the British & Irish Lions home today after their final match in their recent tour of South Africa.

BBC: BA flight 149: Was it on a secret ‘military intelligence mission’?

From the BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58087520

British Airways flagship U.S. lounge reopens

Picture by: Stuart Bailey / British Airways

JFK New York – Club World Lounge

British Airways’ flagship US lounge at JFK’s Terminal 7 will reopen its doors on Sunday 1 August, following a 16-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The news comes in time for the UK Government’s announcement that double vaccinated travelers from the US will be exempt from quarantine on arrival into the UK from 2nd August.

The opening of the Galleries Club lounge also marks the next step in the airline’s phased lounge reopening plan and will be available for customers traveling in First, Club World and eligible card holders, ahead of their flight to London Heathrow.

Those flying from JFK in First and Club World can enjoy an enhanced check-in experience at the exclusive Premium Zone. The First Wing and First check in are also open to ensure a smooth start to the journey.

British Airways’ customers will now also be able to use the airline’s innovative new digital app ‘Your Menu’ to order food directly from their mobile device to their seat after scanning a QR code. The app will be available throughout the lounge, meaning that customers can select from a wide range of complimentary food and beverages, to any seat.

At Heathrow on their return to the US, customers will have access to the Club and First lounges from Terminal 5, which also boasts a new sleep zone ‘Forty Winks’, allowing travelers to rest ahead of their flight.

Elsewhere the airline recently reopened three domestic lounges in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

A walk-through of the lounge can be viewed below.

Historic Photo: British Airways McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 G-BHDI (msn 47831) LGW (SPA). Image: 954573.

British Airways adds extra seats between the USA, EU and UK as bookings surge by 95%

British Airways made this announcement:

787 landing at Heathrow

New bookings from the US surged by 95% within hours of the UK Government announcement
British Airways is adding extra seats from US cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and European cities including Berlin, Geneva and Hamburg
Additional flights will allow US and EU citizens to easily connect to a range of UK destinations such as Newquay, Edinburgh, and Belfast

British Airways is adding thousands of extra seats on key routes to the UK from the USA and EU, following a huge increase in interest in travel to London since the UK Government announced that quarantine restrictions would be lifted for fully-vaccinated US and EU customers when traveling to the UK.

Within a couple of hours British Airways saw bookings from the US surging by 95%, following the recent UK Government announcement mainly from cities such as New York and Los Angeles in the USA, and European cities such as Berlin, Geneva and Hamburg. The additional flights will play a key part in kickstarting the British economy by welcoming much-needed tourism back to cities all over Britain.

Flights between New York-JFK and London Heathrow will increase to 21 services per week (up from 17 per week), Los Angeles and Chicago will increase to 10 per week (up from 7 per week), starting from 16 August 2021. From 23 August 2021, flights between Seattle and London Heathrow will increase to 7 services per week (up from 4 per week), and Los Angeles will further increase to 14 per week. BA also plans to continue to broaden its schedule between the USA and UK throughout September.

Customers from the US will be able to take advantage of the increased timetable, as well as services to the UK with American Airlines. Our partnership with AA allows for seamless connections across American’s key hubs in the US, providing one-stop connections from most US cities into London. British Airways and American Airlines operate more flights between the US and London than any other transatlantic partnership, offering regular direct services to/from 12 airports.

In addition, passengers can connect to British Airways’ extensive UK domestic network to cities throughout the rest of the UK, such as Newquay, Edinburgh, and Belfast, and to a range of destinations across Europe, where entry requirements allow.

Additional flights will also be added from European cities such as Berlin, Geneva and Hamburg, and the schedules will be continually reviewed to ensure the number of seats available matches customer interest. Customers flying in the Euro Traveller cabin can also enjoy the newly launched Speedbird Café at-seat ordering system, recently launched in addition to the existing pre-order service as well as complimentary water and snacks served on all routes.

The news comes after a successful trial was conducted between British Airways, Heathrow Airport and Virgin Atlantic, which showed that the Government’s amber policy for fully vaccinated travelers could be rapidly expanded for US and EU citizens. As part of the 10-day trial, fully vaccinated customers on selected flights from Los Angeles, New York, Montego Bay and Athens agreed to share their vaccination status at their departure airport, showing the industry is ready to rapidly adapt and operationalize further vaccination checks, to support a safe reopening of the skies at scale.

British Airways has partnerships with a range of testing providers and has teamed up with mobile travel health app VeriFly to make customers’ journeys through the airport as smooth as possible. Once a customer has had their travel documentation certified through the app they will be able to check-in through either ba.com or the British Airways app and download their boarding pass before arriving at the airport.

British Airways and partners shortlisted for UK government funding to decarbonize aviation

British Airways made this announcement:

Airbus A350

Eight projects have been shortlisted for funding by the Department for Transport’s Green Fuels, Green Skies competition – part of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, announced in November 2020
The grants will drive meaningful progress towards the development of sustainable aviation fuel plants in the UK and the decarbonization of the aviation industry
Projects British Airways has invested in include turning household waste and wood waste into sustainable aviation fuel and capturing carbon from the atmosphere and form part of the airline’s plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050

Four aviation decarbonization projects supported by British Airways and designed to help the industry achieve its targets of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, have been shortlisted for Government funding.

The Department of Transport’s Green Fuels, Green Skies (GFGS) competition has awarded the funding to develop the UK’s first sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production facility. In total the Government shortlisted eight projects to potentially receive a share of £15 million in its competition, all of which have a clear potential to produce SAF capable of reducing emissions by more than 70% on a lifecycle basis when used in place of conventional fossil jet fuel.

British Airways is directly involved in four of those projects which, pending the completion of grant agreements, can all press ahead with developing their feasibility and engineering plans.

The airline is partnering with technology company Velocys on the Altalto project to build a commercial waste-to-SAF plant in Immingham, Lincolnshire. Altalto will take more than half a million tonnes per year of household and commercial waste and produce up to 80 million litres of cleaner burning SAF and naphtha. The project has already received planning consent from North East Lincolnshire Council and is in the final stages of preparation for Front End Engineering Design.

Project Speedbird is a collaboration between British Airways, LanzaJet and Nova Pangaea, with a goal of producing 100 million litres of sustainable fuel a year from 2025, sufficient to power 2,000 flights from London to New York operated by an A350 aircraft. The technology is based on Nova Pangaea’s REFNOVA® process of converting waste wood into alcohol. LanzaJet’s alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) technology, which was developed by LanzaTech and the Pacific Northwest National Lab, then converts the alcohol to produce sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel.

British Airways is also working on two further decarbonization projects with LanzaTech and LanzaJet that, if successful, could each produce more than 100 million litres a year of SAF. The first would involve capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and converting it into SAF. The second would support the development of a SAF plant in Port Talbot, South Wales that would produce SAF from waste and industrial gases, with the potential to support significant jobs in the area.

British Airways new digital “heat map” helps Britons plan for travel

British Airways has made this announcement:

Sherpa Map

British Airways customers can now check the travel restrictions and entry requirements of any destination the airline flies to on a new interactive map on ba.com.

The new page is in partnership with global tech company Sherpa, who has developed an online tool that provides travelers with the latest travel rules for inbound and outbound destinations. This tool brings together the latest information for over 100 countries, providing thousands of sources, and using millions of data points to stay up to date. The map, that the airline plans to further integrate into ba.com, will also help customers understand what is needed for their return the UK.

Visitors to the page will be able to explore the globe to see what travel restrictions each country has in place before booking a trip, searching visually by traffic light color or by typing in their choice of destination. There is also a tab which allows customers to indicate whether or not they are vaccinated, which will adjust the results.

On announcing the partnership, Max Tremaine, CEO Sherpa said, “Supporting the return to travel, we’re honored to be working with the team at British Airways. Together, we are providing their customers with the information they need to make informed booking decisions and travel confidently again.”

British Airways’ existing online Covid hub includes information on flexible bookings, testing, how to use a voucher and what the British Airways flying experience looks like for those that haven’t travelled for some time.

British Airways has also introduced a number of measures at the airport and on board to look after the safety and wellbeing of its customers and crew. These include social distancing measures, the wearing of face masks (which remain in place) and hand sanitiser stations. Prior to travel customers will also receive details of how they can prepare for their journey, including information on discounted testing providers.

The airline is cleaning all key surfaces including seats, screens, seat buckles and tray tables after every flight and each aircraft is completely cleaned from nose to tail every day. The air on all British Airways flights is fully recycled once every two to three minutes through HEPA filters, which remove microscopic bacteria and virus clusters with over 99.9% efficiency, equivalent to hospital operating theatre standards.

British Airways offers its customers a new fast bag-drop before check-in to avoid queues

AirPortr

British Airways customers travelling from Heathrow Terminal 5 will be able to drop off and check in their luggage with partner AirPortr as soon as they step off the Heathrow Express from July 19
The new fast bag drop service is free of charge to customers who have already checked in at home.
AirPortr also offers customers the opportunity to have their luggage collected and checked in from their home or office up to 24 hours before their flight, from £19
Luggage can be checked in at designated fast bag drop points* as soon as customers reach the airport, or alternatively they can pre-book a collection from their home or office online if preferred
The airline will continue to explore options for bag drop areas at other key locations

British Airways has teamed up with AirPortr to create new convenient fast bag drop areas before heading to the departures concourse at British Airways’ London flagship Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport.

With the first drop-off point planned at the Heathrow Express train platforms, customers will be able to quickly and securely drop-off their luggage at peak times**, before traveling bag-free straight through to security. AirPortr’s team seal, secure, and check in bags for customers’ flights, before being collected from the reclaim at their destination.

Customers can also choose to book luggage collections from their home address, from £19*. This service allows travelers to check in their bags from the comfort of their own doorstep, with a vetted delivery driver. AirPortr ensures that once collected, bags are sealed and monitored throughout the delivery process.

Passengers can track their luggage online from the moment it leaves their doorstep, or at the T5 key access areas, right up to the bag being loaded onto the aircraft. Customers using the services also receive digital bag tag receipts.

Tom Stevens, British Airways’ Director of Customer Experience said: “Ahead of July 19, we have been busy investigating and trialling ways to ensure that we can offer our customers the smoothest journey through the airport possible.

We believe this contactless initiative with AirPortr allows our customers to avoid baggage check-in queues and move through the airport without the hassle of carrying luggage, as well as offering the reassurance that we are doing everything we can to ensure the safe delivery of their bags from doorstep to destination.”

Randel Darby, CEO and Founder of AirPortr Technologies said: “We’re proud to be able to play our part in helping British Airways and its customers with the restart of international travel this summer. Seamless, contact-free journeys through the airport are in everyone’s best interests and removing bags from the equation makes this possible for many more people. As the specialist in this space, we’re excited to be working with British Airways once again to lead development of innovative new baggage solutions, for the benefit of customers traveling in a post-pandemic world.”

As well as the AirPortr’s luggage service, British Airways also offers a special twilight baggage drop service the night before travel from Heathrow Terminal 5, when customers are able to deliver their bags to the airport terminal between 4 and 9pm the day before they travel.

The airline is continuing to explore how it integrates other technologies to further streamline the customer experience, including trialling digital travel apps to ensure customers meet the entry requirements for their destination before arriving at the airport. Customers can currently use VeriFLY on all flights to the US, Canada and France as well as on all inbound flights. The airline has also recently announced its involvement in IATA’s Travel Pass. The digital travel solution will begin on British Airways’ flights from Heathrow to Geneva and Zurich.

British Airways’ customers traveling to Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, can now also upload their negative Covid-19 test result and other documentation directly into ba.com for verification before travel.

Elsewhere the airline is trialling new intelligent queuing technology from Qmatic, that enables customers to virtually queue at check-in by pre-booking their slot time in advance of arriving at the airport.