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British Airways drops the Financial Times from its lounges

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British Airways has pulled the Financial Times from its flights, lounges and boarding gates.

The Sun, apparently, will continue to be available ….

This was clearly not a decision taken by the FT, since it has published the following advertisement encouraging people to fly with other airlines if they want to get their hands on a copy!

British Airways drops Financial Times

It would be interesting to see what was behind this.

Historically, publishers paid to have their magazines put into airport lounges – I’m not sure about newspapers. 

BA, to be fair, always seems to have imposed a quality threshold as well, something which many other airlines would do well to learn from.

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Comments (138)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Steven says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:06

    That’s a shocker if true. BA censors the skies..keeping the fake news, losing the real stuff. Whatever happened to press freedom?!

  • Dac123 says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:19

    BA clearly don’t have a quality threshold as they offer the Daily Mail on their flights 🙂

    • Spurs Debs says:
      17 Apr17 April 07:26

      I’m permently banned from comments section of that rag 😂

    • IanMac says:
      17 Apr17 April 07:41

      The Mail disappeared one or maybe even two years ago.
      I for one was a Mail fan and would always request one to be brought to me on long haul flights back to LHR.
      Apologies to any members who picked up my discarded and unread Mail to find the centre puzzle pages missing 😉

  • Will says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:25

    “Quality threshold”? BA continues to offer the Sun 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

    BA never considered dropping the Mail under Dacres’s hate filled reign for risk of backlash.

    Interesting view on quality right there.

  • KBuffeyy says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:32

    OT – Received an email offering 25% off Marriott Points. $468/50000 points. I know it was mentioned yesterday for people who held a Marriott Credit Card (I do not).

    Seems expensive IMO. Would welcome any ideas of how to benefit from this.

    • Rob says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:27

      Anything above 0.5p is too much unless you have a specific plan like St Regis New York.

    • Andrew says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:37

      Also got this offer.

      Depends on what you plan. If you just need to top-up your points in order to get a free stay, it’s quite convenient.

    • ken says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:46

      Expensive.

      The only use may be odd niche Marriott moments that may be decent value & otherwise sold out.

    • Alex W says:
      17 Apr17 April 09:13

      Cheaper than cash at the Langley, if it’s still available for 35k per night.

  • Frankie says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:55

    OT. Qatar’s cheap biz class fares from Stockholm to Bangkok still exist. Thought they were supposed to end on 4th April. Still ~ £1300k next Feb.

  • Ryan says:
    17 Apr17 April 08:05

    I mentioned on here around 7/10 days ago that the new No1 Lounge at EDI was capacity controlled. Cannot remember exactly what article it was.

    • Rob says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:21

      Many have said this but implied it was evenings, not mid afternoon.

      • Ryan says:
        17 Apr17 April 08:32

        If it is being marketed more and more towards leisure travellers, to me it doesn’t really matter what time of day it is unless you know for sure there are not six or seven charter flights heading to the sun.

        Being full therefore should not come as a surprise…. Or else, there would be no need for capacity control..

        • Ryan says:
          17 Apr17 April 08:37

          Notwithstanding the large numbers of Low Cost carriers ex EDI servicing the same destinations as the traditional charters.

  • James P says:
    17 Apr17 April 08:50

    Off to see the Ladies Final and Men’s Doubles Final on Saturday 8th.
    Managed to get reasonably priced flights from LHR in ET but shocked how expensive hotels are over the weekend with no reward availability!

  • James says:
    17 Apr17 April 08:58

    BA have just changed over their magazine and newspaper deliveries from Dawsons media to another supplier. They have been with Dawsons for years. This is likely behind the change.

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