As part of a series of enhancements to help raise morale, British Airways is allowing non-revenue staff passengers to take onboard amenity kits and pajamas.
As a cost-cutting move, staff travelers were previously prohibited from taking onboard treats, despite receiving at least a 90% discount on the regular ticket price.
The airline will also allow staff passengers to select a wine from the entire collection, and they will no longer be restricted from selecting a wine that requires the opening of a new bottle.
In reality, most flight attendants and their friends and family who were traveling on heavily discounted concessionary tickets were already given an amenity kit and other goodies as part of a longstanding tradition among flight attendants, which is common at most airlines, to make staff ‘non-rev’ passengers feel welcome.
A recent internal staff satisfaction poll revealed “sobering results,” and CEO Sean Doyle is working to repair a strained relationship with employees after admitting that the airline made mistakes in its early pandemic reaction.
Doyle, on the other hand, has revealed that the airline will not be raising employee wages anytime soon, despite the fact that the UK is experiencing a cost-of-living problem, and is instead focusing on other modest changes.
Employees who can afford a vacation will soon be able to use the airline’s premium lounges as part of an internal “mystery shopper” program, in which staff travelers report on the level of service and cleanliness they encounter in the club.
On Friday, British Airways unveiled a number of other small enhancements to the passenger experience as part of a larger drive to make the airline more ‘premium.’
Headline improvements include:
- A new dedicated check-in zone for World Travellers Plus (Premium Economy) passengers
- A baggage tracing app
- A greater variety of meals available in Club Europe (Business Class)
- A new plant-based menu in its premium lounges
- Water bottle filling stations and removing single-use plastic bottles from premium lounges
“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,” commented Tom Stevens, BA’s director of brand and customer experience.
“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.”
The airline has also committed to addressing problems at its call centers by installing a new phone system and hiring more employees.
