British Airways is now able to automatically rebook delayed passengers on alternative flights on ‘nearly every major carrier’ after it upgraded its rebooking system as part of a £350 million investment in its dilapidated IT infrastructure.
Within the first ten days of the new rebooking tool going live earlier this month, British Airways has already rebooked 20,000 disrupted customers on 36 alternative airlines without any manual intervention from its stretched customer service teams.
Under both EU and UK consumer rights legislation, British Airways is legally obliged to rebook or reroute significantly delayed passengers on flights operated by other airlines but, until now, the airline only had the technology to rebook passengers onto flights operated by just four other airlines.
BA’s computer systems only allowed passengers to choose alternative flights operated by American Airlines, Iberia, Finnair and Japan Airlines, while rerouting on airline other carrier required long waits on the phone to get a customer service agent to make a booking on their behalf.
Since the new rebooking tool has gone live, BA has been able to automatically rebook passengers on airlines it doesn’t have any formal business relationship with, including Delta Air Lines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and German flag carrier Lufthansa.
The airline told staffers that the rebooking tool prioritises rebooking for vulnerable passengers with accessibility needs, while real-time data and machine learning aims to predict which passengers are going to miss their connection in order to serve them with a list of alternative flights that they can rebook themselves onto.
Describing the technology as a ‘game changer’, British Airways hopes the rebooking tool will create a ‘seamless and stress-free travel experience’ for passengers even when things go wrong.
Earlier this year, British Airways said it had earmarked £100 million from its £750 million IT investment to develop machine learning, automation and artificial intelligence.
The IT improvements are just a small part of a much-wider £7 billion transformation plan, which British Airways hopes will restore the airline to ‘world-class’ operation.
The vast bulk of the budget will be spent on purchasing brand new aircraft, while the airline also plans to transform its website, upgrade its First Class product with brand new suites and finish a refit of its long-haul fleet with new Business Class suites.
