British Airways plans to extend visa-linked offer to travellers

Taking into account the overwhelming response from Indian travellers to its visa-linked travel offer, the British Airways plans to extend the scheme for a few more months.

British Airways South Asia regional commercial manager Chris Fordyce told Deccan Herald that the company will shortly announce the extended time period for the visa-linked travel offer.

“ Our visa-linked travel offer allows customers to avail a discount that equals the cost of their six-month UK visa. Our first scheme is valid for tickets booked till June 30 for outbound travel.

Journey under the offer should be undertaken by December 31. Now we have decided to further extend the time period for the same scheme,” said Fordyce.

British Airways, part of the International Airlines Group (IAG), operates 48 services per week to India connecting  Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai to London.

“We have been operating in India for the past 85 years. Since India became the second largest market for British Airways after North America, we continue to offer best-in-class services and travel experiences for our customers.

Besides increasing seats by 40 per cent in 2013, we plan to add another 10 per cent with the introduction of Dreamliner services to Hyderabad in April.

We will start it from Chennai in 2015,” Fordyce said.

British Airways has been investing in enhancing its products and services, and around 5 billion pounds has been pumped in since 2011.

“Our endeavour is to bring in more local flavour in our services and with a personalised touch. To adopt to Indian market conditions, we are giving special retraining to our cabin crews and appointing more Indians to assist in our operations side. We are the first airline to provide crews with i-Pads in the world,”he said.

When asked if there was pressure on British Airways to raise more profits for IAG, Fordyce said British Airways is focusing more on expanding its position India.

“We have registered double digit growth in India and continue to perform like that. British Airways acquired BMI last year and expanded our network with 50 per cent slots in Heathrow airport. Now we are working on a plan to generate revenue of 1.3 billion pounds by 2015,” he said.

To another query, he said British Airways focuses more on SME business customers.

“Here we have On Business Loyalty scheme for travellers where if they go in a group we give them a few concessions and additional tickets. We are also planning to come up shortly with a scheme for Indian students,” Fordyce said.