British Airways cabin crew are using Apple’s iPad 2 to bring a new dimension to customer service in the air.
The iPads enable cabin crew to have prior awareness of customer preferences and a greater understanding of each customer’s previous travel arrangements, allowing them to offer a truly personalised service.
The iPad lets crew quickly identify where each customer is seated, who they are travelling with, their Executive Club status and any special meal requests. It gives cabin crew a whole library of information at their fingertips including timetables, safety manuals and customer service updates. It also means any issues can be logged with ground-based colleagues around the network prior to departure so solutions can be delivered while the flight is airborne.
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When all the passengers have boarded and just before the doors are shut, cabin crew are currently handed a long scroll of paper, listing up to 337 customers. With the new iPads cabin crew will simply refresh their screen when the doors have closed through wireless 3G networks and they will have a complete list of passengers on board.
Bill Francis, British Airways’ head of inflight customer experience, said in a statement, “The iPad is already allowing us to offer a more personalised onboard service, but the possibilities for future development are endless. We’re receiving great feedback from cabin crew and customers already. It allows the crew to offer the thoughtful service they want to deliver and customers are treated as valued guests.”
The iPad is currently being trialled with 100 cabin crew with the aim to roll it out to all senior crew members across the airline in the coming months.
Source: British Airways
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Brawndo Drinker” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
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Mission-critical Apple iPads in cockpits may hasten end of era for paper charts – March 7, 2011
FAA authorizes use of Jeppesen app on iPad to replace paper aeronautical charts – February 16, 2011
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I have yet to see one of these articles read like, “British Airways cabin crew are using tablets to… whatever…” It seems ALL such articles are about iPads.
Maybe the iPads will remind the attendants that everyone in the back of the plane is overly cramped and cranky because of it!
I hate BA. They charge extra for what every other carrier gives for free: legroom.
Try flying Sunwing, The airline for sardines.
Not true at all….about legroom that is…..oh and everything else you just said.
Extra legroom is just another name for business class, right? And I don’t think anyone gives that for free.
B. AAPL.
Have you ever even been on a plane? Certainly not with BA.
I travel internationally quite a bit on numerous airlines. The legroom in the least expensive coach seats on BA planes is as tight as it gets compared to other carriers.
I’ll never fly them again unless I can buy or guarantee a bump forward in the cabin to what they’re attempting to sell as their premium coach (oxymoron) seating or business class.
Aside from possible health/medical needs of the
passengers, screw the “more personalised onboard service”.
Get me from point A to be ON TIME without crashing and
I’ll be happy.
correction: point A to B ON TIME.
I’ll care when the iPad helps them serve food that is edible. Until then customer service on a trans continental flight is sorely lacking.
These articles do seem to fly into the face of earlier claims that iPads are useless for business. Businesses seem to be taking to iPads rather well and think they show a lot of future promise. Windows tablets and Windows netbooks never showed any promise like the iPad has, especially in such a short time.
They use Windows tablets on Iranian Airways so they can match the frequency of their planes crashing with that of Windows crashing.
[snorts tea through nose]
The iPad is currently being trialled with 100 cabin crew with the aim to roll it out to all senior crew members across the airline in the coming months.
If BA is like American airlines (not necessarily AA), senior cabin crew serve First and Business class. So of course senior crew will be given the tools to improve the customer’s service.
“…cabin crew will simply refresh their screen when the doors have closed through wireless 3G networks…”
I think they mean wifi, not 3g.
Without retrofitting their planes they can ‘phone home’ anywhere in the world and get the boardinglist and vital statistics of every passenger.
My ipad even serves as servingtray sometimes…