British Airways Corporate Communications

Executive Summary

British Airways is the largest International Airline in the UK with more than 400,000

employees and operates in over 75 countries.

The communications strategy for British Airways is complex and needs to address:

Internal Communications (Employees)

UK and Worldwide

Customer communications

Promotion and advertising

Crisis Management

International

Media Communications

Shareholders and investors

Government and regulator

Suppliers

A co-ordinated strategy is vital as if communications in one of these areas fail the others

will be affected.

British Airways objective is to put the customer first and provide excellent customer

service. To do this it is important to have motivated staff and deliver an excellent

service. This report looks at the Internal communications at British Airways as this has

been weak in the past. The communications to the customer is also analysed, reviewing

consistency and content of the message.

We have not analysed the shareholder or media communications in this report. Much

of the reputation of the company will be based on the above and therefore the report

focuses on these.

Following difficulties in recent years with staff unrest and strikes British Airways has

embarked on a comprehensive internal communications campaign including staff

magazine, intranet, video and posters. The advertising campaigns launched in October

2011 were dual purpose, aimed at customers but also the staff. The adverts promote

the good service and excellent staff training and include 13 members of staff within the

advertisements. This is a good example of integrated communications strategy aimed at

customers to promote good service and staff to instil pride.

A second major challenge for airlines is crisis management. British Airways need a

strong strategy for dealing with a crisis and although they appear to cope well when the

crisis is out of their control they need to respond better to problems created by...