Customer development
I fully understand why many will be tempted to view our performance this year through the prism of Terminal 5. But we have made great strides forward enhancing our service for customers on the ground and in the air.
We completed the installation of our new Club World cabin on our entire 57 Boeing 747 fleet, offering better sleep to our premium customers, and an improved Club kitchen. We have also striven to set new benchmarks for comfort in the air, and the awards it has attracted tell us that we are achieving that. We have started the fit out of the new Club World on our 42 Boeing 777 fleet.
On the ground we continue to develop our online booking service britishairways.com.
I referred earlier to our order of new aircraft. While the delivery of the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 may be some years away, our design team has already begun the process of developing our unique next generation interior. In terms of CO2 emissions per seat, the Airbus A380 will be 17 per cent cleaner than the Boeing 747-400 and the Boeing 787 will be 30 per cent cleaner than the Boeing 767.
New services
We are also investing in new services to prepare for new opportunities in our markets. We have ordered two Airbus A318s to operate our new business-only service from London City airport to New York – a service we think will prove popular and convenient for people working in these two financial centres.
In longhaul we are expanding services to our two most important markets, the US and India. This summer we will fly 41 times a day to 18 US destinations. We will also launch a new daily service to Hyderabad in India.
The alliances we have with other airlines remain very important to us and mean we can be much more responsive to our customers’ needs. Our ties with Iberia, where we now have a 13.15 per cent stake, continue to get stronger and you can expect us to enter new code-sharing agreements with the Spanish carrier beyond those we already have.
As the Chairman notes, we have also announced plans to start flying from continental Europe to the US.