British Airways rolled out a new and simplified website product last month. Visitors to www.ba.com will see that the website now allows passengers to increase the flexibility of their ticket or the class they are travelling in on either one or both legs.
Martin George, commercial director, admitted that ?it will be a gradual education process, but at the moment 70% of Executive Club members deal with us online, and 25% of passengers visit ba.com before flying, so we are confident.?
Another benefit offered by the improved booking process is the facility for economy class passengers (at any fare level) to upgrade to business class on short-haul routes. This is especially useful when passengers need to fly business class on a particular sector ? for example, to accompany a client.
At the same time, BA has become the first major European carrier to introduced tiered pricing in Club Europe. The new move means that business class passengers need no longer pay a costly fixed price to fly business class. If you choose to book ahead or fly at quieter times you can now fly for around 50% less than before.
Some 60 million people visit www.ba.com each year ? more than actually fly with the airline ? with the website accounting for 17% of worldwide revenue (40% up on last year).
For BA, the attractions are obvious: if passengers use the website it can employ fewer people for phone calls and at the airport, though the airline is keen to stress that staff at airports will be moved away from processing passengers and into customer service. The website is also BA's stated answer to the question of how it can get passengers quickly through busy terminals at Heathrow prior to the opening
of Terminal 5 in 2008.
?Everyone accepts that Heathrow is basically full,? says Martin George. ?We want to put more people through, but can't with the present set-up. This offers one solution.?
BA believes that if the majority of passengers can check in, print out their boarding cards (on selected routes; 34 at the time of writing) and provide the necessary Advanced Passenger Information (APIS) before they arrive at the airport, this will shorten queues for everyone. There are now 38 self-service kiosks throughout the UK, Europe and at JFK so people can check in and receive their boarding cards at the airport.
