Paw people at the back of the queue please
Designate partner Adam Hill can’t quite get his head around the latest announcement from British Airways. Here’s his latest blog.
"I wrote a while back about BA selling M&S sandwiches on their short haul flights and how this really was the demise of what was once a proud and strong brand.
Well now I am surprised to be back here discussing sandwiches again. And BA again. This time it’s marmalade sandwiches and the joyous timing of BA’s insolent, arrogant brand idiocy – and the way that they intend to deal with their customers. I think it is time that someone went up to BA to tell them that we are no longer in a world where brand arrogance stands up. They need to sit up, wake up and look around. There’s a new word being used in brand, and it is kindness – not arrogance.
BA has announced it will allow people to board their planes based on what they have paid for their tickets. The richest, highest paying (or stupid?) customers will go on first and the poorest lowest payers will go on last. I presume this is how they will also offer the food. The rich get first pickings from the sandwich tray, and the poor get the crumbs. I guess it is a little bit like life, but this is life up in the air. And BA really are up in the air. (My view is that they have been for years by the way).
Now there is a point to my story. You, as a trusted brand, create a Twitter storm by announcing that the poor people will go on last and the rich will go on first, and then the next day, your entirely non-conjoined brand ambassadors (more Princess than Ambassador I am sure – if you get my early 80’s reference) release what they perceive to be a jolly and typically British, nay humorous post on Facebook. About a bear. And manners.
Read more here
It starts – "From navigating the Tube, to what to do in the West End, Paddington Bear gives us his top five London etiquette tips so you don’t put a paw wrong."
With an intro like this, it got my cynical synapses buzzing and my marmalade mouth watering and had me reaching for another slice of the BA buttered action.
Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, we are going to get some etiquette tips from the brand-failing BA via a fictional bear. Please, please, please, tell me there is one about queuing….
1.Escalator use
2.Eating
3.Saying thank you
4.How to behave in a theatre
And YES, in at number 5 of 5 top tips this little gem
5.Remember to queue
Paddington (not BA obviously) says ‘In Britain, I’ve discovered that people always stand in line for everything. It’s called queuing here and if you try to jump your place in the queue you will probably find people giving you one of my famous hard stares’.
Silly Paddington, queue jumping is a piece of piss. Sling the man an extra marmalade sandwich and you are right at the front. And if BA ran a school you would be sent to the back of the class for being thick you paw thing.
BA. To Fly. (I have dropped the ‘to serve’ because they don’t any more)."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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