British Airways
The sky is the limit for british airways
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ritish Airways, the flagship carrier and the largest airline in the United Kingdom based on fleet size, is celebrating 80 years of flights to Hong Kong in 2016. One would think that the carrier wouldn’t have any more surprises up its sleeves, but happily, British Airways has more in store. “British Airways has been serving the Hong Kong-London route for 80 years. We are constantly thinking of ways to develop our products and services to serve our customers in Hong Kong better,” says Noella Ferns, British Airways’ regional general manager, Greater China, and the Philippines. British Airways’ route network currently serves more than 190 cities in 80 countries. It has been flying to Hong Kong for 80 years and currently operates 14 non-stop flights a week between Hong Kong and London. British Airways is the only carrier to operate an Airbus A380 on the route. To understand why Hong Kong (and also Asia) is very near to British Airways’ hearts, here’s a bit of history: On 24 March 1936, British Airways’ predecessor Imperial Airways became the first commercial airliner to land at Kai Tak Airport. Back in 1936, a trip from London to Hong Kong would take eight days and a one-way ticket would cost £175, which is equivalent to £11,113 (HK$127,800) in 2016. The entire trip from London to Hong Kong 80 years ago involved 21 stops to change aircraft and refuel. Passengers would stay overnight in hotels in Alexandria (Egypt),
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Baghdad (Iraq), Sharjah (UAE), Jodhpur and Calcutta (India), and Bangkok (Thailand). In Asia, apart from Hong Kong, British Airways is also flying to eight other markets namely Sydney in Australia, Beijing and Shanghai in China, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi in India, Tokyo’s Haneda and Narita in Japan, Seoul in South Korea, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Singapore, and Bangkok in Thailand. “Our airline has a long tradition of connecting people and businesses between Asia and the U.K. and Europe,” says Ferns. New offerings in store British Airways will continue to deliver quality offerings to its customers as the years go by, and has already announced a couple of initiatives. In terms of technology, for instance, British Airways will be offering high-quality Wi-Fi connectivity on selected flights starting in 2017. Customers will be able to enjoy broadband internet access on their own mobile devices for emails, web browsing, social media, and video streaming. Passengers will have the bandwidth capacity to use multiple devices at the same time, and connection speeds will be similar to what they have at home. Furthermore, British Airways’ mobile app also offers new features which allow customers to book flights using Apple Pay and to receive promotional upgrade offers. This gives customers the simplicity and flexibility to pay how they want with absolute