European Combined Studies

Industrial Marketing - British Airways Brand Audit

Question 1 and 2.

British Airways is the main English airline company and is part of the most known of the world. The company principal hub is in London, in Heathrow airport and it operates both short distance flights and long-haul flights.

In 1974 British overseas and Airways corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways were merge to form British Airways, a nationalised airline carrier. At this moment the company suffered from internal government, strategy, and management problems. There were tensions between the two former staffs which doesn't appreciate each other.

There was also too much employees for the merged company but British Airways kept them during an certain time which led to an inefficiency of work/productivity and a loss of profit.

The other problem was that the company was above all focused on its products and not really on services toward customers. British Airways idea was quite inward-looking and did not take in account its customers needs and considered that it was a benefit for the customer to make their way with British Airways. This was quite a bad thing for the perception of British Airways brand as it was known as a poor quality service provider. The expression of “Bloody awful” was often use during this period to characterize British Airways.

Moreover, a part of the pilots of British airways were officers for the Royal Air Force,which did not help the situation as they brought their military way of thinking.

The fact that British Airways had a strong hierarchical and inflexible management was not a good thing which help the situation to be set up too.

In 1981 British Airways operate big changes in order to avoid bankrupt. This feeling of emergency from British Airways was strongly motivated by the problems caused by the recession time. On one hand it was necessary to make that the staff change its mind toward their work and stop