British Airways plans to spend £5bn on fleet upgrade and modernization
British Airways announced today its plans to spend more than £5 billion on customer products and services over the next five years.
The funds will be allocated for the following activities:
- Purchase of new aircrafts.
- New World Traveller and World Traveller Plus cabins.
- A revamped First Class.
- Significant improvements at the facilities at the Gatwick airport.
- Upgrade and opening of new lounges across the route network.
- Improvement in catering services.
- Technological upgrade both in air and on ground for better customer experience.
- Much more user friendly website and Apps.
The company has also launched its biggest brand campaign in a decade to advertise these changes through all possible channels. The campaigns based on the company’s historical motto ‘To Fly, To Serve” is meant to showcase the airline’s heritage and highlight the characteristics that make British Airways special such as decades of flying know-how, thoughtful service and British style.
The adverts are slick and capitalize on BA history pretty well. You can check out the new ads out here.
This is a welcome improvement for BA given that it will help them upgrade their cabin products and also do away with the ageing fleet. But the question remains to be seen as to how they implement all these changes. BA is in a state where they are facing consistent pressure from all possible fronts such as unions, new airlines attacking there market share on lucrative routes so these changes will clearly help them build a better value proposition to attract more customers. On a personal note I would love to have something like the legendary Concorde back in service.
Till then lets just wait and watch as to how things shape up!
A revamped First Class. ?? i thought they just upgraded F.
With the new aircrafts coming in, the plan is to upgrade their First class products consistently to match the industry standards and also maintain product consistency. BA is really going big guns with this revamp 🙂