Our story

It’s easy to look to things like innovative products and services, glamorous destinations and charismatic crew in bright red uniforms as the reasons for our success. But these are just part of our story. The personality and language of our brand plays a major role too, and to get a grasp on why, it’s useful to look at our past.

With a parent brand that had owned a music label and record stores, we used marketing and public relations to our advantage. Using the same skill we’d developed promoting the likes of Culture Club and Simple Minds, we set out to inspire the public to fly with us. We flew to desirable destinations. We came up with innovative new products and services that would make the journey much more fun. We hired happy people with lively personalities to be our cabin crew. And we didn’t charge the earth.

We gave people a choice. A bright red, fun, friendly, fabulous choice that made travel attainable for everyone. Back then, our personality was cheeky and over the top. We were a tiny airline up against much bigger players. We needed to use quite radical language to get attention. We were the airline that loudly proclaimed ‘BA doesn’t give a shiatsu’ to promote our onboard massages. ‘Play with yourself’ was the way we chose to advertise the first ever seatback games. Not exactly subtle, but it got us noticed.

Throughout the 80s and early 90s, we continued to lead the pack. Sleepy legacy carriers were too slow, or too entrenched in their ways to catch up with us. And even if they did, we’d dream up something even more innovative. As our business established itself in markets appealing to business travellers, then our personality slowly had to change too. The cheeky language we’d employed to encourage people to fly with us on their holidays was no longer quite as appropriate to talk to a business audience - although we still managed to promote our seatback screens as ‘nine inches of pure pleasure.’

But as much as people enjoyed flying with us, we didn’t fly everywhere, so they often had to fly with somebody else. In 2012, we formed an alliance with Delta Air Lines to offer our customers access to an even greater network, seamless travel and reciprocal frequent flyer benefits. In 2019, we extended this to join forces with Air France KLM, to offer passengers even more choice and value.