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A round-up of some of the news I’ve noticed coming out of British Airways in the past few days including a new route to Spain out of London City Airport, a new feature for the British Airways Mobile App (which I’m not yet convinced is that great) and a reduction in Baggage Allowance for Club World travelers that’s unlikely to affect too many people.
British Airways To Fly London City – Alicante
British Airways has announced that it is to commence service between London City Airport and Alicante from 27 June 2016.
The route is only going to be operated for the summer season but it looks as if BA are going to be putting on enough flights to make this a useful option for a lot of flyers heading to Spain this summer.
The route will be operated between 27 June and 5 September with a 4x/week service on offer between the two cities on the following schedule:
BA2225 LCY 06:45 – 10:15 ALC (Mon, Wed)
BA2225 LCY 07:00 – 10:30 ALC (Fri)
BA2225 LCY 10:05 – 13:35 ALC (Tue)
BA2224 ALC 11:00 – 12:30 LCY (Mon, Wed)
BA2224 ALC 12:00 – 13:30 LCY (Fri)
BA2224 ALC 14:15 – 15:45 LCY (Tue)
The route will be operated by a British Airways Embraer 190 with 22 seats in Club Europe and 76 seats in the Euro Traveller cabin.
British Airways Embraer 190 – Image courtesy of Mark Harkin via Flickr
Prices appear to start at around £66 one-way for a “hand baggage only” fare and are already bookable on BA.com:
British Airways Mobile App Updated For Multiple Boarding Passes
This is an enhancement I’m not entirely sure about but, before we get on to why, here’s what British Airways had to say about the new addition to its mobile app:
Boarding British Airways flights has just got easier for families and friends travelling together thanks to the introduction of multiple mobile boarding passes. Previously, each person had to each carry their own smartphone to show their mobile boarding pass to go through security or board a flight. But now up to eight individual mobile boarding passes can be viewed on one phone, providing everyone travelling together is on the same booking reference number.
I’m not convinced this isn’t anything more than a solution looking for a problem.
A British Airways spokesperson is quoted as saying:
Multiple boarding passes stored on just one device makes it far quicker and easier for groups of friends or families travelling together to pass through security and board our flights. We responded to feedback from our customers who were in groups travelling together to make passing through the airport quicker and easier.
Is having all the boarding passes on one device really going to speed things up? I doubt it.
The two places I most often need my boarding pass are:
- At the entrance to security where I have to scan my boarding pass before the automatic gates let me through
- At the gate where the gate agent scans my boarding pass before allowing me on to the aircraft.
So here are my questions:
- If all the boarding passes are on one device how is each traveler going to get through the automatic barriers before security (like at Heathrow T5)? Will each traveler have to pass the device back to the next person as they pass through the gates?!
- At the gate, how is giving the gate agent a single device with all the boarding passes (where the agent has to scan each pass before swiping the phone screen to get to the next one) quicker than either having paper boarding passes for everyone or having each person pass through with their own electronic boarding pass ready for scanning?
If I’m missing something someone please let me know because, as things stand, I actually think this will slow things down!
British Airways Reduces Club World Baggage Allowance
British Airways has announced that, for flights purchased from 10 May onwards, the free checked baggage allowance for Club World passengers will be reduced from three to two pieces of baggage with each weighing a maximum of 32kg.
This is the advice being given to agents:
- The existing three-piece allowance will be honoured for any bookings made prior to 10 May 2016.
- Gold Executive Club Members will still be entitled to an additional free bag
- Club World customers will be able to check in a third bag, if required, for £120/$180/€140 if pre-booked online or £140/$200/€150 when purchased at the airport (Except on flights from Brazil where the charge is US$120 for each piece of luggage).
I’m not entirely sure why British Airways has felt the need to do this as I don’t imagine too many people were making use of their full allowance but that just means that there shouldn’t be too may people put out by this.
Still, if you were thinking of moving home and using your Club World baggage allowance to help out, book your tickets before 10 May 🙂
