• 600+ modernisation initiatives are being rolled out as part of the airline’s £7bn transformation plan, as it invests in every part of its business
• A new website, mobile app, free onboard messaging, new short-haul seats and a new First suite are among the airline’s latest plans
• Multi-million-pound leading-edge technology systems, AI and machine learning will help flights depart on time, along with 350 new jobs at Heathrow and the first ever bespoke Microsoft Connected Teams ground-to-air customer care solution
• The BA network continues to grow, with two of the airline’s most popular Asia destinations to return from October and November
• The airline is also investing in a new lounge space in Dubai, as well as the previously announced refreshes for Lagos, Seattle, Heathrow and Edinburgh

British Airways has announced an array of new initiatives to transform the airline, unveiling a £7bn transformation plan at its first ‘In the Skies’ showcase event in London. Chairman and CEO Sean Doyle outlined his modernisation plan, committing to delivering a world class customer experience, modernising IT, growing pride among colleagues and focusing on sustainability, as well as driving on-time performance.

“We’re on a journey to a better BA for our people and for our customers, underpinned by a transformation programme that will see us invest £7bn over the next two years to revolutionise our business,” Sean Doyle, British Airways’ Chairman and CEO, said. “We’re going to take delivery of new aircraft, introduce new cabins, elevate our customer care, focus on operational performance and address our environmental impact by reducing our emissions and creating a culture of sustainability. We’re also heavily investing in the development of a new ba.com website and app and are laser-focused on transforming our business and fixing any pain points for our customers.”

WiFi enhancements for customers 

With more customers looking to remain connected with the world from their seats, from April 3, British Airways Executive Club Members will start to be able to send messages free of charge on a single device using the airline’s WiFi – whatever cabin they’re travelling in. The service will be available on every WiFi-enabled aircraft within two weeks of the rollout date*.

The airline has also become the first to offer a WiFi-enabled inflight customer care solution to solve issues in the moment – even at 35,000ft. Created especially for British Airways by Microsoft, customer care teams on the ground are now able to connect with cabin crew colleagues across more than 300 flights a day. The functionality allows crew to help solve any unexpected issues before a flight lands at one of the airline’s more than 200 destinations.

Operational excellence 

The airline is investing £100m in machine learning, automation and AI across its operation, driving improvements from bookings to baggage handling and helping to revolutionise its operation, speed up departures and respond to disruption. Innovative new tools are helping to predict delays (prompting pre-emptive action to reduce disruption) and analyse real-time weather, aircraft capacity and customer connections data to help teams make better decisions. Since the introduction of the systems, alongside a number of new processes and ways of working, the airline has seen improvement to its on-time departures.

British Airways is also creating around 350 new roles at Heathrow to improve customer experience at its home and hub airport, and is investing in new equipment, such as baggage tugs and towing vehicles.

The airline is also investing £750m in its IT infrastructure to move 700 systems and thousands of servers to the cloud by early next year.

New lounge design concept 

The airline is proud to announce that it is set to open another brand-new lounge, this time in Dubai, which is relocating to a new larger space at Dubai Airport later this year. This lounge will be the first to feature British Airways’ new lounge design concept, followed by the opening of its Miami lounge in 2025. The new Dubai lounge will replace the existing lounge facility at the airport, offering more space and more features for customers. The airline has also announced lounge refreshes in Lagos and Seattle, these follow recent lounge refurbishments at Heathrow Terminals 5 and 3, as well as Edinburgh.

New cabins and seats 

New short-haul seats and cabin interiors will feature on the next generation of British Airways’ Airbus A320neo and A321neos, with eight aircraft set to arrive from May this year. The airline is working with the best of British suppliers from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with the new short-haul Euro Traveller and Club Europe seats reflecting a modern yet classic British interior. The re-designed cabins will also be fitted with extra-large bins for overhead luggage.

Investment in First  

As the only European carrier to offer First Class between the UK and US, British Airways is to introduce a brand-new and exclusive First suite. The airline expects the new seat to make its debut at the end of 2025 into early 2026 as part of its A380 aircraft refurbishment.

New Routes 

British Airways’ flights from London to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are set to return. The services will re-start in October and November respectively, further demonstrating British Airways’ commitment to expanding its network to Asia post pandemic.

The airline will operate daily flights between the Malaysian capital city and London Heathrow on a 787-9 aircraft, as well as three flights a week between the Thai capital and London Gatwick on a 777-200ER.

British Airways is also returning to Abu Dhabi on April 20, as well as welcoming Agadir in Morrocco on March 31 and adding Izmir in Turkey to its network on May 18.

Sustainability 

Taking significant and urgent action to address aviation’s impacts is critical to make the industry much more sustainable in the long term. Through the BA Better World programme and its commitment to People, Planet, and Responsible Business, British Airways continues to innovate to drive continual improvement in its environmental, social, and governance business performance and meet its net zero target by 2050 or sooner.

Last week the airline’s parent company, International Airlines Group (IAG) announced its largest SAF purchase agreement to date with e-SAF (power-to-liquid) producer ‘Twelve’, which will supply advanced e-SAF made from carbon dioxide, water and renewable energy to support IAG’s five European airlines, including British Airways. The next-generation fuel will reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90% versus conventional jet fuel. IAG is the first European airline group to announce an e-SAF deal, and the agreement will enable it to continue increasing its SAF use towards the goal of 10% by 2030.

• Virgin Australia has expanded its industry-leading baggage tracking tool to service all domestic and international routes*, including Queenstown, Bali, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and Japan.
• In an offering not comparable to any other Australian airline, Virgin Australia guests will now receive notifications when their bag is ready to fly, loaded onto the aircraft and again when the luggage has arrived at the baggage carousel.
• The first-to-market technology which first launched on two-thirds of the airline’s domestic network last year, has since been used approximately 1.3 million times by Australian travellers, with Virgin Australia having seen a 12 per cent increase in app downloads.
• To use the tool, guests can simply download the Virgin Australia app and enable push notifications.
• The announcement forms part of Virgin Australia’s more than $400 million investment in digital innovation, technology, and customer experience initiatives, which includes newly launched websites, apps, digital systems, reduced call-wait times and Rapid Rebook – a tool for guests to self-manage their bookings end-to-end in the event of disruption.

The Bali Provincial Government has introduced a new tourist levy of IDR 150,000 per person to foreign tourists entering Bali.

The tourist levy is separate from the e-Visa on Arrival or the Visa on Arrival. It has applied since 14 February, so is now payable by all foregin tourists.

Cashless payments can be made online prior to travel or on arrival at designated payment counters at Bali’s airport and seaport.

Our very own Claire Winnel, Manager ATPI Cruise & Travel at our flagship store in Terrigal, NSW was lucky enough to fly Emirates Premium Economy class to Christchurch recently.

She is delighted to report back “The cabin is lovely, very spacious with lots of room to move around. You have your own bathrooms at the front of the aircraft and dedicated cabin crew.  The leather seat is very comfortable with plenty of leg room, a footrest and decent recline of 8 inches.”

“There are only 56 seats in the cabin with 2 cabin crew looking after you. The meals are more similar to business class served on china plates with cutlery wrapped up in a linen napkin.”

“Unfortunately, there are only certain destinations that operate the premium economy seats, but we are very lucky out of Australia with Sydney and Melbourne offering fabulous connections to London.”

A smooth, sophisticated experience for Claire.

Virgin Australia has announced its intention to be the country’s first airline to operate flights with pets onboard under a plan unveiled today.

The Australian-first service, which will have pet-lovers rejoicing around the nation, is subject to regulatory approval, and is expected to launch within 12 months.

In a social media survey of Virgin Australia’s Facebook followers in 2021, 85 per cent of respondents voted in favour of the airline launching pets in cabin flights. In more recent research conducted by Virgin Australia with Australian pet owners, nearly 70 per cent of respondents advised they would travel with their pet in the cabin, with 57 per cent saying they would fly more regularly if the service was a reality.

Almost all major carriers in North America offer a pets onboard service for domestic flights, including United Airlines and Air Canada.

Proposed pets in cabin in-flight experience

For the comfort of all guests, Virgin Australia has today announced a number of parameters for pets in cabin flights:

The service will be limited to small cats and dogs on specific domestic routes;

Pets will be restricted to a limited number of designated rows and will not be allowed to roam freely or sit on laps;

Pets must also be carried in a Virgin Australia approved pet carrier under the seat in front of the owner for the duration of the flight.

CEO Commentary

Speaking at a press conference at Melbourne Airport, Virgin Australia Group CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka, said Virgin Australia is thrilled to finally reveal its plans to be the first Australian airline to offer pets onboard flights.

“Our love for animals has always been in the Virgin Australia DNA and we are excited at the prospect of taking off with Australia’s first-ever pets in cabin flights,” said Ms Hrdlicka.

“Overwhelmingly, our guests tell us they want to travel with their pets, and we are now on a journey to make that a reality. It’s something that commonly happens overseas and is proven to work well.

“Almost 70 per cent of Australian households have a pet, so this announcement is really significant for a large proportion of the country. It’s also a great thing for pet-friendly accommodation providers who will benefit greatly from increased connectivity and the ease for travellers to fly with their pets. It really will be a whole new economy for pet travel in Australia.

“Pets on flights is another example of Virgin Australia leading the way with new and improved service offerings and first-to-market experiences for our guests.

“Innovation has always been a hallmark of Virgin Australia. We were the first airline in the country to offer online check-in. This year we were the first Australian airline to launch baggage tracking and a fully integrated self-service disruption management tool. It’s this innovation and first-to-market drive that underpins who we are in the market,” she said.

Melbourne Airport CEO, Lorie Argus said the airport was looking forward to helping Virgin Australia deliver the Australian-first.

“We’ve been investing significant effort into providing relief areas for assistance animals and these facilities have ample capacity to serve Virgin Australia’s new guests,” she said.

“Animals being carried on board Virgin Australia flights will be required to remain in their approved pet carriers at all other times within the terminal.

“We expect the pets in cabin concept will prove a popular offering and we look forward to working with Virgin Australia to make it a reality.”

More details on pets in cabin flights, including available routes, and the cost for bringing a pet onboard, will be announced in due course.

No changes to assistance animals

The proposed pets in cabin flights will not result in any change to approved assistance animals being able to travel in the cabin of Virgin Australia aircraft at no additional cost. The existing procedure for assessing the eligibility of these assistance animals to travel onboard will not change. Additionally, Virgin Australia will continue to offer pets to be transported as cargo through approved pet carrier services, as this remains an important part of the Virgin Australia pet offering.