BA’s Latest Apps Streamline Operations, Enhance Passenger Experience

**Posed by Models** British Airways Cabin Crew using an iPad with a customer, photographed at London Heathrow, UK, 09 May 2012 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

The paper trail is no more: armed with iPads and apps, BA staff are fully embracing tech to modernize the carrier’s processes and procedures.

Back in 2008, Britain’s flag carrier launched its very first app. Since then, it has created over 40 different apps, each helping to monitor different aspects of the British Airways (BA) operation. Today, BA staff can monitor everything from crew registers, check-in and flight turnaround times with just a swipe of one of the carrier’s 17,000 iPads.

BA now employs a host of apps, but two of its latest additions are notable for the enhancement that they bring to the carrier’s internal operations as well as to its customer service experience. The airline’s iLoad app is certainly helping with the former. This enables BA’s Turn Around Managers (TRMs) to monitor processes such as boarding, disembarking, refueling and even safety checks.

While the goal of iLoad is to help TRMs get a grounded plane up in the air as soon as possible again after landing, it’s also had a wider impact on procedures at BA, even helping to cut the company’s paper trail. Abigail Comber, BA’s head of brands and customer experience, told Alphr’s Thomas McMullan that, “It’s about changing the way we transfer information from one place to the next, and making it more efficient. [The TRMs] don’t have to sit and wait for the paperwork while the engine is churning and burning a ton of fuel.”

While aircraft handling times can certainly impact on travelers, another app recently added to BA’s arsenal is perhaps more directly related to the carrier’s passenger experience. This is the airline’s Passenger Information List (PIL) app. PIL enables crew members to view detailed passenger information on everyone onboard a particular flight. Just like the iLoad, PIL has allowed BA to dispense with its paper trail, eliminating the bulky rosters of yore.

The advantage of PIL, Comber explained is that “You can download it before the doors close, and take the most up-to-date details.”

Dumping paper trails for iPads, it appears that BA has wholeheartedly embraced the app age and is invested in providing a more customized, enhanced and even transparent experience for its staff as well as its passengers.

[Photo: BA]