British Airways campaign braves UK media

Since the initial fortnight of baggage breakdowns and delays, chief executive Willie Walsh has used just about every public occasion to point out that the problems have been addressed and that customers are starting to enjoy the benefits that British Airways had hoped the £4.3 billion terminal would deliver.

Now the airline has gone a step further with the launch of an above-the-line campaign in the UK press to prove that T5 is working. Every day for a fortnight in August 2008 and again in September, advertisements in the UK press is using actual performance indicators from the previous day to promote how well the terminal is doing. The campaign started on Thursday 7 August.

Performance criteria

The performance criteria used in the ads are those which resonate with airline passengers and which the technology, systems and services at Terminal 5 are supposed to address. These include the time it takes to get through security, flight punctuality, baggage arrival times and the time it takes to get from the aircraft to the arrivals hall.

The campaign is a brave one - particularly in the cynical British press, which is sure to examine each claim minutely - and gives some substance to Walsh's repeated assertions that things have in fact improved beyond all recognition since 27 March and the disastrous days that followed.

Lin Glass, who heads the airline in South Africa, says that although the campaign won't run here, local passengers have been reasonably forgiving about the opening glitches and the feedback since has been overwhelmingly positive.

“In the first 100 days about 87 000 customers travelling to and from South Africa used Terminal 5. The experience of the vast majority of these has been good and we've been getting a lot of encouraging comments from individuals, corporates and the travel trade.”

Over six million people have used the terminal in just over four months. More than 420 flights operate into and out of the T5 on a normal weekday, including both the Johannesburg and Cape Town services. This will increase to 510 at the end of October, when the final longhaul routes move from other terminals at Heathrow.

To view the latest Terminal 5 advertisements, go to www.terminal5.ba.com/yesterday/.