These days, it is rarely good news when an airline sends out a notice of changes. The good news for me is that, although I often use British Airway Avios (miles) to book award tickets, those flights are rarely actually on British Airway flights. As long as they don’t change the Avios booking on me, I’m alright with changes such as this, which I just received in an email from British Airways.
New Boarding Rules:
We are changing the way you board your flight. Customers will now be invited to board based on the cabin they are travelling in and in order of Executive Club status. All of our other customers will be asked to board by seat row number. If you are travelling with an infant or are a customer who requires extra assistance, you will continue to be invited to board before everyone else.
New Baggage Allowance Rules:
In recent months we have seen an increase in customers travelling with hand baggage that exceeds their allowance. We always try to accommodate our customers where we can but to make sure the aircraft is ready to depart on time we are making the following changes:
• You can continue to carry 2 pieces of hand baggage. One bag should be a handbag/laptop sized bag which should now be no larger than 40x30x15cm.
• The size of your additional cabin bag remains unchanged and should be no larger than 56x45x25cm and can weigh up to 23kgs.
• Customers travelling in all cabins, except First and Club World will receive a yellow tag for handbag/laptop sized bags which are within the new dimensions. We guarantee that you can take this bag on board with you. Please have the tag visible for boarding and place the bag under the seat in front of you.
• On very busy flights we may have to ask some of our customers to check bags without yellow tags into the hold if the overhead lockers are full.
These changes will be rolling out across our network in the coming weeks and we will keep you up to date as and when this happens.
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
Good to know. I’ll be traveling on British Airways for the first time later this year.
I like the concept of forcing some bags to the feet area, with an exception – if I have no OTHER bags (just my laptop bag), it should not get a yellow tag and be forced under. Rather, I should be allowed to put it up top. Again, with no second bag, I think it’s fair that I don’t give up my legspace if I only brought one bag on board (the laptop sized bag).