As part of its centenary year, throughout 2019 British Airways completed 100 Acts of Kindness for customers, including once-in-a-lifetime trips and reunions, upgrades, surprise proposals, and money-can’t-buy experiences.
Examples include:
- Upgrading 100 customers from World Traveller (British Airways’ economy cabin) to First on Valentine’s Day
- Sending young cancer patient Laura Nuttall on her ‘bucket list’ trip to Africa
- Getting 96-year-old Frank Dell, a former RAF pilot, back to the flight-deck 45 years after his retirement
- Sending the airline’s retro-liveried BOAC Boeing 747 centenary aircraft out to Los Angeles to greet one special customer, Judie Parr Graham-Bell, whose late husband organised the Royal Flights for BOAC
- Flying ex-US Secret Service dog, Hurricane, to the UK to receive an ‘Animal OBE’ PDSA Order of Merit
- Teaming up with joint business partner American Airlines to reunite a family that is spread across two continents in time for Thanksgiving
- Giving a heroes’ send-off to a group of World War II veterans travelling to the Netherlands for the 75th anniversary of Operation Market Garden
- Helping customer Phil Reynolds propose in bright lights across the five huge advertising screens in British Airways’ home at London Heathrow Terminal 5
- Offering young aviators a behind-the-scenes tour of the airline’s engineering and flight training facilities, in partnership with make a wish charity Rays of Sunshine
- Flying customer Cheryl Lawley back to Australia over Christmas, so she could surprise her uncle at his wedding and thank him for his support through her on-going battle against a brain tumour
Further acts of kindness have included granting access to the airline’s Club and First lounges at Heathrow, offering complementary champagne and upgrades to customers celebrating special occasions, visits to the flight deck, complimentary tickets to rugby matches at the airline-sponsored Twickenham stadium, and free flights.
