By Staff, Brand Republic , 11 August 2008, 09:00am

7 article comments

British Airways blames mix up for T5 ad mistake

 

LONDON - British Airways has blamed a mix up for a mistake in its new Terminal 5 punctuality campaign, created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, which has led to the ads having to be rewritten.

The Sunday Times brought to light the fact that the Civil Aviation Authority measures departure times from when an aircraft leaves the terminal buildings, and not when it takes off. However, the British Airways T5 ad said that 90% of flights were "taking off within 15 minutes of the scheduled time", which it had said was an industry standard.

The copy on the BA website now reads: "Yesterday at T5 90% of flights left on time."

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that a source at BA blamed the T5 problem on a "mix up" between BBH and BA's marketing staff.

the source told the newspaper: "We are so annoyed because we knew we had to be spot on with the wording but someone at the agency changed it. We should have picked it up."

The airline is investing £6m in the T5 ad campaign, in a bid to change the minds of the public following the debacle of the opening of Terminal 5, which saw flights cancelled and delayed, passengers queuing for hours to check in, and luggage lost.

The "Terminal 5 is working" campaign will keep passengers updated as the punctuality of flight arrivals and departures, as well as average check-in times, as reported by passengers using the terminal.

A spokeswoman for BA, said: "This was a genuine human error and was an innocent oversight.

"The headline claim of 90% of flights leaving from the terminal on time within the industry standard was correct, however the use of the phrase "take-off" may have been unintentionally confusing and for that we apologise.

"All 90 airlines which use Heathrow have to queue for take-off for around 20 to 25 minutes most days. This process is not controlled by the airlines.

"Overall we are pleased that Terminal 5 continues to work well and our customers are enjoying the best levels of service at Heathrow for many years."

Virgin Atlantic, the bitter rival service, is understood to be preparing to complain about the campaign to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Separately, Virgin Atlantic is to undertake a £3m campaign in a bid to scupper British Airways' plan to set up a joint venture with American Airlines. The advertising and lobbying push will argue that the plan is dangerous for consumers.

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robin caller

robin caller - 11 August 2008

Wow, the Sunday Times must have been short of stories - what a storm in a teacup - BA is correct and the Sunday Times clearly has zero understanding of how departures and flight times are measured - gate to gate. Funny that the Sunday Times would focus on this story and not bother getting into some real nitty gritty. Why, for example, did Trevor Beattie get away with putting human faces on animals for Tony Blair's Labour Party posters, something akin to the old Nazi racist posters, and not get some serious heat from the Sunday Times? And then, didn't Virgin hire Trevor Beattie to handle their Virgin Galactic advertising? How about that for double standards? Hire a man capable of the dirtiest tactics, and then complain about someone else's semantics.

s b - 11 August 2008

BA not the only ones to make a silly mistake,...However, the British Airways T5 ad said that 90% of flights where "taking off within 15 minutes of the scheduled time" .... think you'll find its "were" not "where"

FP

FP - 11 August 2008

As someone who lived through the whole T5 launch debacle, it's going to take me a long time before I trust BA again. There were the golden years in the late 80's and 90's when BA lived up to their advertising claims but then they got all confused about who and what they were trying to be and compete with. The T5 thing was supposed to be a rebirth of the airline and start to pay attention to the paying customer again. They were overwhelmed by the disaster and had clearly made no 'plan B' provision. They then made no attempt to say sorry bar the poor guy who was fired sending around an e-mail. There was no magnanimity to the way the management handled the problem.

Focussing on the negative assocations in the ad campaign seems totally daft. We all know that planes don't leave on time really, what is important is that they land on time and you can get out of the airport easily. We pay more to 'be closer to somewhere' when we land, but it we take an extra hour to get our bags that makes no difference.

I'd like to see BA be a little less desparate and penny pinching and show us why we should like them again. I'm surprised BBH proposed the creative in the first place.

E K - 11 August 2008

Haha..BA as usual on top of agenda!

Sir Richard is doing hard to get rid of the BA's competitive power - bad move.

But in terms of trut to BA I agree with FP totally. But to be honset I do not see any wrong doing by BA as they do things to be the winner in the hefty air travel market and being fair they play thier part too to keep their audience happy. I think the whole thing is complicated and just picking on BA is not right. The Civil Aviation Authority has differnt criteria to measure the accuracy and quality of the airliners and the airliners of course have their own criteria. Both are clear and customers can surely read through the lines; as they are adult and able to realise a true or fake statement.

Andy Peel - 12 August 2008

I saw this in thelondonpaper the other day, its a bizarre campaign I talked about it further on my blog http://theapofcrap.blogspot.com/

I just think its funny how its basically making these figures up. They'll end up causing more trouble than it solving i think to be honest

Nicola Clark - 13 August 2008

I have to say having had the (non-existent) pleasure of flying to LA just after T5 opened I cannot stand this campaign. For BA to congratulate itself that 90% of its flights are almost on time is a joke - what about the other 10% of them ? This campaign is misguided to say the least - more brand - and customer - mis-handling from BA.

Nic Niewart

Nic Niewart - 13 August 2008

And no one who has worked on an airline account would know the difference between gate time and pull back time?

Least of all the account manager and the client? What nonsense! A plane can leave a gate any time before, or at the time. Some normal decent airlines use pull back time as the departure time.i.e you actually are thundering down the runway and the pilot pulls back at the departure time. Miss your slot at Heathrow and it could be half an hour before you are actually airborne. Only two runways, you see, on top of all the nonsense.

An honest mistake? Not for an old hand, it ain't.

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