What the Heck Happened to British Airways?

I just completed 3 days of straight travel, originating in Brussels, flying through Munich, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, London and back to Edinburgh. It has been several years since I was flying British Airways regularly to and from the US. It was the highlight of my travels, experiencing BA’s wonderful customer service both on the plane and in the terminal lounges. As a Gold card member of their much coveted frequent flyer program, you got extra special service everywhere you went with British Airways. Everything about the experience set them apart from the competition, especially the poorly managed US airlines that have absolutely no customer service. Quality food, drinks, amenities, and most of all first rate customer service where staff actually took the time to look at your boarding card and address you by your name. And for this differentiated experience, we the road-warriors of travel were happy to pay a slight premium (2-5% on average) to fly British Airways.

So you can imagine my excitement when my red-eye flight from Washington Dulles to London Heathrow was booked on British Airways. It was the first time in 4 years that I was back on a BA flight over the Atlantic, having regularly flown with US Airways, Delta or Continental Airlines in recent years. Flying business class on a 7-hour redeye where you have a flat bed compartment all to yourself and can actually sleep all the way through means you arrive in London early morning and can actually be productive for the day. Additionally, British Airways have an Arrivals Lounge that permits the traveler to grab a shower and shave, change into fresh clothes (they press your suit and shirt for you), and grab a hot breakfast before catching the Express train to central London. So after two days of airport hopping across the globe, I arrived at Dulles International airport ready to be greeted by the British Airways staff at the lounge with a “Welcome back, Mr. Broumand! Its been too long.” What I got instead was very disappointing.

British Airways has become nothing more than a mediocre airline that is slightly more expensive than its competition. The cost cutting and reduction in customer service has transformed what was once the best customer experience to nothing more than ‘more of the same’. Starting with the lounge in Dulles, the space has been reduced to where there wasn’t enough room for all the passengers to sit and relax two hours prior to the flight to London. I had to wait 10 minutes to use the restroom – there is only one restroom for men and one for ladies. You could expect some quality snacks and sandwiches from BA lounges, but the sandwiches were stale and tasteless while trying to be fancy (Tuna, Chicken, Ham and Cheese were the choices but the labels had fancy names you couldn’t pronounce). Cookies, chips and grapes rounded out the choice. BA did have a restaurant and a buffet for travelers wishing to dine before boarding, but I didn’t use it so can’t comment on quality, choice or service.

To test the customer experience further, BA has divided a very small space at Dulles into ‘First Class Lounge’ and ‘Business Lounge’. The trouble is the space isn’t well defined, nor is it differentiated in any meaningful way other than there is an individual standing guard at the First Class section to catch any Business Class traveler (average $4,500 a ticket) who may have inadvertently wondered into the unmarked First Class area. I didn’t realize I was in the wrong place until this individual rudely asked a wondering customer whether they were traveling First Class, and then proceeded to stand in their way and ask them to leave the area. Can you imagine? You are traveling Business Class and an ill-trained staff member shoos you away. Now if I was flying First Class and had paid upward of $10,000 for my ticket, I’d want my own space too, but all that stood between First and Business was one ill-mannered, $8 an-hour staff member who had absolutely no customer service or consideration whatsoever. Fortunately I had unknowingly snuck past the guard on my Business Class ticket. Ridiculous.

Hoping to see the old BA experience when boarding the plane, I was immediately disappointed by the lack of the traditional BA welcome. I was one of the last to board and most passengers were in their seat, yet only one person greeted me at the door when usually there were 4 or 5 flight attendants in the past waiting to greet passengers. More cost cutting perhaps? Making my way to my seat I was surprised to see the plush pillows and thick blankets I was used to 4 years ago were replaced with something that looks like a pillow but feels like a pillow case, and a thin blanket that didn’t strike me until I froze for 6 hours trying to catch some sleep. The comfort kit was probably the biggest sign of how British Airways has declined. Molton Brown used to be the exclusive provider of this amenity, I have no clue who has replaced them, and the packaging, product and branding were cheap. Its not what you would expect from Business Class service on British Airways.

One thing I will give them credit for was the Arrival Lounge in Heathrow’s Terminal 5, which is dedicated to British Airways. It was my first time at Terminal 5 since it was opened a couple years back. The Lounge is first rate and the service was pretty good. Clean showers and spa facilities allow the overnight passengers coming from all over the world to relax and start the day right after a long flight. A hot breakfast buffet was even more complete than what I recall, and free internet in the lounge is a big change from when BT or T-mobile gauged you for 60 minutes of wifi. I managed to clean up, get in my pressed suit and shirt, get a good breakfast and head out to London for a day of meetings feeling pretty good.

You are probably thinking right about now “Broumand is such a spoiled brat that lives in a cloud”, but those of you who have traveled on BA in the past and know what its like to live on the road for a substantial part of the year will sympathize and not think me ‘excessive’. The airlines industry set a standard long ago for Economy, Business and First Class Travel, and while some airlines (especially the US airlines) have completely fallen from that standard, icons like British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, Singapore Airlines, Emirates and many others have focused on exceeding those standards in customer experience while managing their costs and profitability. I flew Turkish Airlines economy back in May and it was a far better experience than this. I am genuinely saddened by the state of British Airways today, this was an icon of air travel and British quality that is no longer. What the heck happened?

You have to appreciate my frustration and disappointment because both British Airways and British Airport Authorities, the operator and owner of Heathrow and many other airports around the world (JFK, Pittsburgh in the US are both BAA operated), were clients of mine back in my FreeMarkets and Ariba days. We helped BAA source goods and services to build Terminal 5, and Ariba has been the strategic partner to British Airways’ procurement operations for the better part of a decade now. No doubt procurement have done their job too well. While many companies over-spec what they buy, and hence pay more for it, when you are in a business that is as customer-facing as airlines, someone needs to look out for the quality of the customer experience.

British Airways have lost the plot and need to get some help on this. They are not the company to have gone down this path, but the bigger and better your brand is, the worse the damage. Can you imagine if you bought an Apple product and it just didn’t work? Or was faulty in a way that it ruined your user-experience? Everyone expects PCs to crash or freeze, but if that ever happened to a Mac, the damage to Apple would be significant. British Airways’ brand is in a very real state of free falling – I polled several fellow travelers who have observed the same reduction in quality and service I did – if they don’t reverse this fast then the brand may never recover.