THE AGENDA Liquid Lunch
The new man at the controls of British Airways, Sean Doyle, tells John Arlidge how he plans to liſt the flag carrier to new heights
His soft Irish lilt and relaxed ‘ask me
anything’ style could not make him more different from Cruz, who often preferred to release pre-recorded statements to journalists on Twitter and Facebook. Doyle is more of a natural showman, too – an important quality for an airline boss, as Richard Branson has proved. The Club Suite, which Doyle is
experiencing for the first time in-flight, is a key part of his new strategy. BA, like most airlines, generates 75 per cent of its profits from business-class passengers even though they account for only one in 10 tickets sold. The suite is a vast improvement on the outgoing business class, which was not only cramped but also, because the seats were face-to-face, was a bit too ‘hello, stranger!’ for many. It is 21in wide and 6ft 6in long in bed
People do
business with people. You lose the business to the guy who shows up when you were on the Zoom
THIRTY-NINE THOUSAND FEET over the Atlantic is the perfect place to have lunch with Sean Doyle. The chief executive of British Airways is on BA001 to New York, celebrating a return to normal flying between Britain and the US. After a wretched 18 months, it’s time to toast a bright(er) future. ‘Champagne,’ I suggest. ‘It is a celebration,’ he replies. We order from the new Club World menu. Our body clocks are out of sync so he plumps for afternoon tea – smoked salmon pumpernickel and salt beef pickle sandwiches, followed by scones. I go for Loch Fyne smoked salmon with roasted
heritage beef fillet chimichurri. We’re sitting in one of the new Club – business class – suites in a hangar-fresh Airbus A350 jet. Everything around Doyle is new – new suite, new cabins, new food, new drink – and that’s the point. Doyle wants to make a fresh start, to win back the loyalty of millions of passengers who say that years of cost-cutting under his predecessor, Alex Cruz, left the flag carrier little better than a budget airline. ‘We need to be premium in everything we do. We are investing to get our product, our people and our service to the standard we want,’ he says.
mode and arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration across the cabin, which gives every passenger direct aisle access. It has a door that fully closes. The TV screen has almost doubled in size to 18.5in and can be viewed from gate to gate. There’s reliable, fast wifi. ‘It’s one of the best business- class experiences in the sky,’ Doyle says. The suite will be on all long-haul jets
by 2024-25, starting with the Airbus A350, Boeing 787s and 777s and, lastly, the Airbus A380 superjumbo. While other airlines are dumping the A380 because they say the four-engine 550-seater is too thirsty to make economic or environmental sense, Doyle is committed to the 12 that BA operates. ‘They work for us because we fly from a slot-constrained airport – Heathrow.’ Can the giant of the skies be profitable? ‘It generates returns for us – yes.’ Passengers flying business and first class from Heathrow are being served
RUSS TUDOR
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