British Airways passenger disruption notifications via text message (Incentivated) | MMA Global

British Airways passenger disruption notifications via text message (Incentivated)

April 29, 2007




Entry title
British Airways passenger disruption notifications via text message

Section / Category
Leisure / Travel

Campaign background and objectives
Following significant investment in email marketing, British Airways discovered that during the period less than 48 hours before a flight, email was not a good enough communication method for urgent disruption notifications. The airline established the need to develop an instantaneous communication channel for alerting passengers, logistics firms and staff of last minute flight update information. The service needed to be quicker and more cost effective than voice calls and be multi-lingual. Text messaging proved to be the best solution, though email would continue to be used more than 48 hours before take-off. 


Solution
Passengers are invited to sign up to the service via the British Airways website (www.ba.com). The service was also promoted in trade publications and via direct communication with British Airway agents.

The Global Standard for Mobiles (GSM) enables text messages to be sent to customers in a number of languages.

Results
The service is proving invaluable to BA customers in terms of time saving: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

·          During disruption caused by terrorist activity at <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Heathrow Airport in August 2006 over 20,000 SMS messages were sent to BA passengers and cabin crew in 87 countries over a four day period

·          89 passengers were informed of cancelled flight BA0214 from Boston to London on August 10th 2006

·          Flight BA9043 (Düsseldorf to Heathrow) was cancelled on 11th Dec 2005 - 46 people (or 30% of the 155 people on a Airbus A310) were sent a text message alerting them of the cancellation and advising them to call BA instead


About Incentivated
Incentivated works with global brands to help them communicate with customers instantly and easily via their mobile phones.

We develop and manage mobile marketing campaigns and services on local, national and international levels. (Patented) technology, developed by Incentivated, allows our clients to reach people in all corners of the world and in many languages, using text messaging and the mobile internet.


We believe the mobile phone is an intensely private medium. Respecting this principle, our campaigns provide information that consumers find useful and welcome.

Founded in 2001, Incentivated's fast growing client base includes British Airways, Hilton Group, Carphone Warehouse, OneTel, Scottish Power and Macmillan Cancer Support.