WeAreFlyingHigh

The application process is long, tedious but stick with it and it's shouldn't be too difficult. The online questions were centered around "What if..." - These don't really have a model answer (most is multiple choice). Did you ever watch Airline on ITV? If not watch from series 2-8 on Youtube. Analyse how Jane Boulton made her decisions often not sticking with company policy. BA liked to see applicants thinking for themselves, adapting things to best serve the customer whilst maintaining the BA ethos. If you approach them with the mindset of selecting answers which continually follow the book you won't get far. That's vague so I'll give an example:

"What if a passenger was a group of friends were checking in for a flight to go on holiday. One of the group had forgot her passport. She could drive home to collect her passport but would arrive back at the airport after check in has closed. What approach would you take?"

1. Allow her to travel without her passport.
2. Be flexible with the time check in closes, possible delaying the flight for her.
3. Ask if she would like to transfer on to the next available flight which, due to the later flight being fully booked, is tomorrow.
4. Transfer her to the later flight if a seat becomes available.

There's only two reasonable answers that could be correct, 3 or 4. BA doesn't operate a standby policy as such as described in question 4 but with the circumstances suggested, a bit of flexibility in this situation would go a long way in the 'Fly to Serve' motto without costing BA. Therefore answer 4 would be reasonable with a explanation over the 'by the book' attitude answer 3 gives. It's all to do with the individual circumstances and using reasonable discretion.

The phone interview and subsequent face-to-face interviews are pretty standard like you have with any company. The old "Why BA?", "what has been your biggest achievement" etc... type questions were asked along with more situational questions requiring an imaginative solution with 'To Fly To Serve' in mind. The one I was asked was "Say you were working on check in when a family approached wanting to check in. After looking on the system you realised check in for the flight had closed a couple of minutes ago. How would you address the situation?" - My answer had several points to it:

1. Time - If the flight was the last one of the day , the last one for a few days or many hours (I said early morning flight and late evening flight), checking the family in and forcing the figures to be adjusted risking a delay would be preferable to unhappy customers who could possibly be missing a holiday of a lifetime, or be forced to deal with looking after young children in an airport for an extended length of time. I gave an example of a flight to Orlando before Christmas. The family may have been saving up for years wanting to go to Disney, the children would be bursting with excitement and if it was the last flight before Christmas Day missing the flight would result in a destroyed holiday. The hopes and dreams of the family would have been shattered due to zero flexibility and unfortunate circumstances (for I know there could have been a really bad traffic accident delaying them). Flexibility in allowing them to check in would save their holiday and portray BA in a positive light.

2. Reflected on the situation as if I was the customer. I also included the extent to which some flexibility beyond what is usual goes a long way in customer relations, brand loyalty, and good PR.

3. I introduced my own example and applied the same thinking to a situation on board an aircraft. If a passenger cannot have his first choice meal a complaint to the CSD/CSM usually results in either a Club or First meal being given. Although this is not BA policy the gesture goes a long way with the customer.

In short: They want someone who give thoughtful solution to problems inspired by BA policy and 'To Fly To Serve'. As one interviewer said to me after my answer. "Policy is drawn up by people in offices who cannot possibly image every situation encountered by our frontline staff. It's is therefore vitally important to be reasonably flexible when finding a solution for the customer."

After that it was a case of talking about the roles. There was a group event thrown in that but where you had to make something reminding you about BA out of some bits of recycling on the table in front of you. For this avoid making a plane at all costs; everyone does it. My team wanted to make a plane but I got really arsey over it, ('throwing my toys out of the pram' according to one in my group when it came to reporting back about how we think it went) we ended up making lots of people spread out over a huge piece of card all connected together by string which went through a hole in the centre (imagine the string was like bicycle wheel spokes all meeting in the centre), when the string was pulled all of the people came together. The explanation we gave was BA connects people around the world bringing everyone from businesses to families together. It sounds naff but we won the prize for best creation and creation which best describes what BA is all about. That was the end of the process.

If you want any specific details just ask.