British Airways Overhauls First Class Service, Amenities, And Food: Game Changer Or Non-Story?

British Airways has made some great passenger experience announcements this week. The airline has announced plans to overhaul its lounges at London Heathrow Airport (LHR), and has also revealed the details of the all-new cabins coming to the Airbus A380s.

That’s not the only news, though. In addition to plans to introduce a new first class seat, the airline has also shared the details of its new first class soft product, which is coming to all planes, regardless of whether or not they have the new cabins.

British Airways promises a new era of first class

British Airways is overhauling its first class soft product, with the first comprehensive changes that we’ve seen to the cabin since before the pandemic. Beyond the new seats, let’s take a look at what we can expect — all of these changes should be available effective immediately.

First, British Airways is introducing a new unisex first class cabin amenity kit from British heritage house Swaine. It’s available in two colors — royal blue and cream — and contains a selection of skincare products from Wildsmith, with a Circadian Rhythm collection, aimed at supporting hydration and comfort. Products include a face mist, hand and body lotion, ceramide multi-balm, lip balm, face cream, and an overnight mask.

Next, British Airways is introducing a new woven day blanket in first class, featuring a herringbone design. This is complemented by a navy blue cushion with subtle detailing. There’s also new cool-touch fabric navy sleepwear, along with slippers. Then with turndown service, the crew will prepare the bed with a lightweight cotton duvet and newly designed pillow.

When it comes to dining, British Airways is promising greater choice, with a new “From the Grill” concept, whereby customers can create their preferred meal from a selection of proteins, including British roast rack of lamb, grilled salmon, sides and sauces, as well as a selection of signature mains.

To go along with the new dining experience, the airline is rolling out contemporary stoneware and fine bone china. Cutlery is designed by Studio William, while wine glasses are developed in collaboration with Richard Brendon.

British Airways is also promising a new service standard in first class, with updated First Service Specialist (FSS) training, rolling out for all first class trained crews. This is “designed to enable a more personalised service,” and “the programme helps crew respond to individual preferences while delivering the warm, intuitive and attentive hospitality that defines First.”

My take on British Airways’ first class soft product updates

It’s great to see British Airways overhauling its first class soft product. However, at least based on what we know so far, this strikes me as being ever so mildly evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Admittedly British Airways isn’t providing many pictures or additional details about what has changed, but I just struggle to get overly excited about any of these changes.

Okay, there’s new cutlery, and new amenity kits, and first class flight attendants will be trained on… first class service. The customization of being able to create your own meal is nice, but also not exactly a game changer.

But look, it’s not like I was expecting British Airways to reinvent the wheel with its first class. When you look at transatlantic first class products, British Airways has three things going for it:

• The airline dominates slot controlled Heathrow, which has a lot of premium demand, and people value the ability to fly nonstop
• British Airways first class tends to be the most reasonably priced first class product across the Atlantic
• British Airways has a massive first class footprint, the second largest in the world (only after Emirates), so the airline has lots of first class seats to lots of destinations

When you look at the competitive dynamics, Air France La Premiere first class is much more of a niche product, and it’s priced at the top end of the market globally. It’s only available in select markets, and the cabin is small.

Meanwhile you have Lufthansa Allegris first class and SWISS Senses first class, which is almost a self-own in terms of the reduction in capacity it represents, as you have just three seats per plane, so they’re also trying to skim the market, though they seem to be struggling with figuring out how to price it correctly.

British Airways first class doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be good enough. And I do think the airline is accomplishing that.

Bottom line

British Airways has just overhauled its first class soft product. While the airline is also introducing a new first class hard product, the new service, amenities, and food, are coming to all planes with British Airways first class.

There’s ultimately nothing here that’s revolutionary, but instead, we’re just talking about incremental improvements. First class flight attendants will be trained in first class service (wow!), there will be new pillows, blankets, amenity kits, cutlery and china, and even updates to dining, including the ability to increasingly customize meals.

This all seems like a logical evolution of the product. Is there anything here that should make anyone at Air France lose any sleep? Nope. But ultimately British Airways has a different strategy, and that’s fair enough.

What do you make of these British Airways updates?