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CONFIRMED: Here are the passenger improvements coming to British Airways

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Yesterday, we exclusively revealed some of the changes coming to British Airways in the coming weeks and months.

This morning, British Airways sent us the official press release with confirmation of what is happening. We thought it was worth covering again as it goes into more detail about what is happening.

Tom Stevens, British Airways’ Director of Brand and Customer Experience, said:

“We’re committed to ensuring we deliver a premium proposition for our customers throughout their journey with us and when we do so, we need to ensure that sustainability is at the heart of it.

Here are the passenger improvements coming to British Airways

“We want to create an even better British Airways and know that we need to keep making changes to the customer experience with things like alternative menus, reducing plastics and introducing new technology to get us to where we want to be. In addition to these improvements, we are also moving ahead at speed with some of the larger initiatives that we promised to our customers, such as the roll out of our award-winning business class seat, Club Suite.”

Here are the key changes:

New check-in zones for World Traveller Plus (premium economy)

One of the biggest changes is announced is the roll out of dedicated check in desks for passengers travelling in premium economy. This has long been a key differentiator between Virgin Atlantic and British Airways, so it is good to see BA ‘level up’ its World Traveller Plus experience.

British Airways rolled out World Traveller Plus improvements in 2019 including new bedding and amenity kits, so the cabin itself is looking quite smart these days.

You can read our review of World Traveller Plus on a BA A380 here plus a comparison between premium economy on both Virgin Atlantic and British Airways.

BA plant burger

Introducing a plant menu (including burger) in lounges

To cater to the increasing numbers of vegi, flexi and vegan customers, British Airways is introducing a new plant based menu across lounges. British Airways says this will “improve choice”, although that is only true if the new items are supplementary to the carnivorous options rather than replacing them.

The new menus will roll out at Heathrow before being offered in US lounges. It’s not clear if other lounges in the network, such as those in Europe and Asia, will also get the plant menu.

It is not clear whether the menu is already available or when it is being launched.

A plant-based burger will be one of the new options and is now available. Virgin Atlantic has had the Beyond Burger, which I rate very highly, at its Clubhouses for some time, so it will be interesting to see how BA compares. Perhaps I will do a plant burger taste-test competition next time I am in Heathrow T3 ….

Here are the passenger improvements coming to British Airways

More meal choices in Club Europe (and long haul changes on the way)

It’s taken almost two years, but British Airways is finally re-introducing what it calls a “premium pre-Covid meal service” on its short haul business class flights.

Since March 2020 the airline has had a limited menu that reduced the selection of meal choices on Club Europe flights. It is now reinstating a proper service which will include new menus and more variety, beginning in March.

The reinstation of full service on long haul flights will have to take a little longer. British Airways is currently facing a cabin crew crunch as high levels still remain absent due to Omicron and the airline is struggling to recruit as quickly as it is adds back capacity.

This means that Club World service will remain a one (rather than three) tray service for quite a while longer. It is disappointing that BA hasn’t been able to improve this sooner – many other airlines returned to proper pre-pandemic service last year, including Virgin Atlantic and Qatar Airways.

Nevertheless, BA is working on improving long haul catering and says it has “exciting changes afoot”. They will need to fit on one tray though ….

Here are the passenger improvements coming to British Airways

Water stations, less plastic and other bits and bobs

British Airways is making changes to improve its sustainability, including the roll out of more water stations in lounges and the removal of plastic bottles at Heathrow.

I am in favour of increased water stations. In general, the UK is very poor at offering drinking stations in public areas (the US does a much better job of this) so it is good to see BA take the lead on this.

The removal of plastic bottles is less impactful. British Airways has stocked glass water bottles in its lounges for some time. Glass bottles produce more emissions during transport due to their increased weight, of course, so I am not entirely certain how much better it really is. The really sustainable option is just to drink the perfectly adequate tap water ….

Of course, BA also now hands out small plastic water bottles to every single economy passenger on short haul flights. Add in the bottle of water to passengers on long-haul flights and you’re looking at 45 million plastic bottles per year. Taking a few thousand out of the lounges isn’t going to change much.

Other changes include:

  • A new bag tracing system which will allow you to track your bag’s journey through the airport and (ideally!) onto your flight.
  • New signage throughout the airport
  • The ability to make more changes to bookings online, without having to call
  • A new document checking process in time for the Summer
  • The Skyflyers program for children will be relaunched

Conclusion

It is good to see British Airways finally re-investing in the customer experience. It has been a depressing two years at Head for Points when we have had to report so much bad news in the industry – it’s good to be writing about positive changes again.

That said, you shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that anything here is either revolutionary or more than the minimum required to stop the airline sliding further behind. There is no word of, for example, a comprehensive overhaul of the lounges at Heathrow.

It is also time that the catering returns to pre-pandemic service patterns. British Airways is caught between a rock and a hard place given its staff shortages, but it brought the staff shortages on itself, and other airlines don’t seem to be in a similar position.

These changes are a good start, however, and I hope I get to write more positive news items in the coming weeks.

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Comments (143)

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

  • Paul says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:16

    No dates for any of these changes. If it simply states 2022 there is almost 11 months when they need change anything.
    What are the dates for improved catering?

    The changes to checking will simply create more queues and long queues. The terminal was designed and built around the concept of no dedicated check in beyond First Class. The theory being that anyone could checking anywhere and so no queues.
    The problems arose because direct joining passengers who arrive by public transport, all arrive at the North end of the terminal. Those arriving by road can choose where to be dropped off. If you then don’t man up every desk queues rapidly develop and the terminal has now turned in to tensa barrier world. The arrival of QR and hasn’t helped but fundamentally you need to return to how the building was originally designed.

    The single route for transfers passengers that places them into the north end of the terminal and you create queues at security too.

    • meta says:
      4 Feb4 February 11:35

      Some dates have been given, i.e. beginning of March for CE improvements.

      But the outlined improvement is still not the way it was before March 2020. They don’t say whether will be a menu card with choices, whether menu will change monthly and the question of welcome drinks. It all seems so vague.

    • Rhys says:
      4 Feb4 February 11:35

      Club Europe catering is coming in March. I’ve asked for further dates from BA but haven’t heard back yet.

  • Abdul says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:20

    Yawn. Still no free drinks in SH Y except water. Just as crap as Lufthansa then.

    • Catalan says:
      4 Feb4 February 11:30

      Do you also demand complementary drinks and catering on a two or/three hour rail journey then?

      • His Holyness says:
        4 Feb4 February 11:32

        Nah, not being based in London, I just fly Air France and KLM.

      • Ian says:
        4 Feb4 February 11:45

        Good point. I don’t understand why there is a sense of entitlement with air travel that you don’t find anywhere else. We’ve moved on from the days when air travel was glamorous!

        • Abdul says:
          4 Feb4 February 14:59

          I wouldn’t care one bit if BA had Ryanair fares. High fares, low cost service.

      • Lady London says:
        4 Feb4 February 12:41

        You’re not locked up on a train in the same way you are on a plane though. Plus for trains not so many people have to travel potentially hours to reach a particular point they’re departing from. Then people on a train haven’t spent an average of, say 2 hours going through security procedures and often very substantial waits to deplane, pass immigration, collect luggage then quite probably have to take other transport when landing.

        • illuminatus says:
          4 Feb4 February 13:27

          + 1. In addition, you are free to bring any drink in any quantity to the train, which you can’t do on a plane – so altogether it is not comparable to train or bus in any shape or form.

          • lumma says:
            4 Feb4 February 14:25

            I remember being slighly impressed with the elderly Japanese lady who cracked open a can of Asahi that she brought on board a JAL domestic flight. I saw the vending machine near the departure gate but thought it would be frowned upon to drink one on the plane!

          • jjoohhnn says:
            4 Feb4 February 14:27

            You can, as long as you bring it from an airside shop!

          • Londonsteve says:
            4 Feb4 February 15:23

            I wonder what airlines flying to or from the UK have to say about bringing your own alcohol to consume during the flight. Any airline that sells its own booze will be upset at losing the opportunity to sell high mark-up duty free alcohol for on-board consumption, meanwhile you’re not allowed to consume duty free booze you’ve bought at the airport duty free shop until you’ve deplaned. Many European airports have 7-11 style kiosks airside selling newspapers, sandwiches and drinks including beer and even spirits and sparkling wine in small bottles. Clearly you’re allowed to drink those in the departure lounge if they will sell it to you but I don’t rate my chances of drinking it on-board any airline. The fellow sitting next to me while flying back from Gibraltar decided to conceal his cans of surreptitious cider in a sick back although I doubt it was fooling anyone, he just wasn’t noticed by the crew.

          • AJA says:
            4 Feb4 February 15:39

            @ Londonsteve I don’t recommend trying it on Iberia economy class. Several years ago I was roundly told off for discretely trying to add a serving of gin from a hipflask to my tonic water that they gave me. Nowadays I wouldn’t even get the hipflask through security as it breaks the 100ml rule anyway.

          • John says:
            5 Feb5 February 05:58

            Unless it’s changed since 2019, there are no liquid restrictions on Japanese domestic flights (also Australian) so you can bring what you like.

            There could be no restrictions in the UK too, but the airports wanted to give domestic flyers the “opportunity” to go shopping.

            You can bring hipflasks greater than 100ml through security, they just need to be empty, otherwise there isn’t much point of having water stations.

        • Catalan says:
          4 Feb4 February 17:48

          You have the option to purchase food and beverage on board. Just like on long distance rail services. Why is there this obsession with free food on a S/H flight?

      • Richard says:
        4 Feb4 February 18:32

        If BA wants to set it’s self apart from the LCC’s… it’s not a demand, it was once the service offering…

    • Chris R says:
      4 Feb4 February 15:35

      Agree. The ‘perceived value’ of SH catering must significantly outweight the cost to provide. Suspect many would be happy to pay more for BA than Easyjet and Ryanair if the product was better. Although small, SH catering is a huge differentiating factor. BA should stop trying to compete on price – they can’t. Instead, give people reason to pay more.

      • Rob says:
        4 Feb4 February 15:46

        Rhys found an old press article yesterday where BA states that it saved £22m per year by scrapping free food in Economy on short haul. Whilst this number is clearly a few years old, it is still next to nothing – you would assume the PR value alone would be worth that.

    • Jack Hodgson says:
      4 Feb4 February 18:33

      free food and drink is not coming back, for a 2 hour flight you have the option to buy in the airport, bring it yourself or get something from the speed bird cafe onboard. it was a needed change especially to reduce food waste and offer more choice

  • Abdul says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:24

    Interesting about the vegan food. It will save money. We get our plant based burgers for about £1 from Brakes. Aberdeen Angus, which is what BA were using, run at £2.50+. I’m sure they got a better deal than that but it stands they are definitely paying less for the plant ones.

    • Rhys says:
      4 Feb4 February 11:36

      Is that the price for ‘branded’ plant based food, eg. Beyond?

      • lumma says:
        4 Feb4 February 14:26

        Beyond Meat is far more expensive than any meat based burger. Pack of two in Tesco is £5. Finest burgers are max £3

      • Abdul says:
        4 Feb4 February 15:00

        I forgot it was branded, you’re quite right. In that case it’s probably pennies or nothing. BA love a sponsorship deal which is why the name will be prominently displayed. Do you think its a coincidence they love Diageo and Coca-Cola? Once FeverTree got off the ground, they quickly ditched BA.

      • can says:
        4 Feb4 February 20:42

        I hope they don’t use Beyond. It is tasty and all but flies all the way from across the Atlantic.

    • dougzz99 says:
      4 Feb4 February 11:36

      Can only comment on retail but good plant burgers priced at top end of beef prices. My personal concern is whether food that ultra processed is good for us, and whether given processing and ingredient transport needs they’re really that good for the planet.

      • signol says:
        4 Feb4 February 12:05

        Indeed, one of the biggest vegan brands (Fry’s) have their factory in South Africa. Unless of course they’ve expanded enough to open a factory in Europe.

      • Phil W says:
        4 Feb4 February 14:04

        When you look on the supermarket reduced shelves or go to Company Shop and see the amount of “plant-based” food going to waste in comparison to other types (i.e. sometimes it’s 25% – 50% of the waste but barely 2% – 3% of the total stock). You have to question whether the current “plant-based” supply chain is doing any benefit for the planet.

      • jjoohhnn says:
        4 Feb4 February 14:30

        At COP26, the plant based croissant had a higher carbon footprint than the bacon roll.

  • Panda Mick says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:37

    By ‘level up’ do you mean ‘catch up’ which is exactly what they are doing to Virgin?

    Let’s stop with the tory BS. You’re better than this.

    • Rhys says:
      4 Feb4 February 11:56

      You might want to recalibrate your humour detection sensors!

      • Panda Mick says:
        4 Feb4 February 12:18

        You’re probably right. Just sickened by everything going on right now… May want to avoid anything even remotely associated with them right now…

        • Rhys says:
          4 Feb4 February 14:40

          I think Rob edited out a (!) after it so it came across less humorous than i intended!

          • Rob says:
            4 Feb4 February 14:50

            We took an editorial decision after the relaunch to reduce the number of exclamation marks used, if you remember 🙂

            95% of exclamation marks in existing article headlines have been removed.

          • memesweeper says:
            4 Feb4 February 16:09

            Shocking!

  • dougzz99 says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:39

    It’s been said a thousand times, the cuts to service and experience are real, the reinstatements are typically just talk and that remains the case with this recent good news salvo.

  • Andrew says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:41

    “We’re committed to ensuring we deliver a proposition for our customers throughout their journey with us and when we do so, we need to ensure that it is at the lowest imaginable cost regardless of quality or satisfaction”.

    Until they’re willing to spend money this sh*t show will continue.

  • Prins Polo says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:43

    How about the ability to cancel Avios bookings online – just like before the pandemic?!

    It’s so freaking painful to have to call BA or use Twitter (always 24h+ response time for me) to simply cancel an avios booking.

    • Max says:
      4 Feb4 February 12:03

      Exactly.
      I once talked to an agent on the phone, she said she was just cancelling Avios bookings all day.

  • Harry Holden says:
    4 Feb4 February 11:46

    Now I have seen the confirmed detail I am even more depressed about it. It is just a wishlist.

    BA are royally in trouble for the summer with the greed Willies wet dream in forcing high earning staff out of the door rather than placing them on furlough taking precedence over being able to move with agility as demand picks up. They may never recover as the word agile and BA do not belong in the same dictionary.

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