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BA’s Highlife takes off without its passengers

October 10, 2008 by Neil Maclean 

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I really like the look and feel of the new online version of Highlife, BA’s inflight magazine. Cedar and Reactive have done a stellar job. But where is the community? Where is the voice of the passenger? Where is the slightest sensation that this is anything more than a glossy magazine reworked in html and some lovely jpegs? Tim Hughes asks the same questions today over at The Business of Online Travel. To be honest, I can hardly feign surprise as I went to a meeting with BA at Cedar last year and brought up some of these same thoughts. There is a great opportunity here to engage with passengers but it looks like it has been booted into touch. I haven’t been privy to recent process but judging from that meeting, the chances of BA giving the public any kind of platform on the airline’s online property are pretty slim.

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Comments

5 Responses to “BA’s Highlife takes off without its passengers”

  1. Tim on October 12th, 2008 6:18 pm

    Neil - thanks for the link. At one level it is impressive that BA have put so much content out into the wild. However that level is the low level we now set for all “flag” carriers in executing online.

  2. timoneill on October 13th, 2008 10:03 am

    Thanks Neil for the post.

    The community aspect of BA High Life will be considered down the track, but as you know with a large company like BA this is easier said than done!

    It will be interesting to see MetroTwin develop, as this (also for BA) actively encourages the voice of the passenger.

    All feedback is welcome!

    Tim O'Neill, UK MD, Reactive

  3. Jeremy Head on October 31st, 2008 3:23 am

    Hi Neil
    BA is doing socialmedia… Have you seen http://www.metrotwin.com?
    Interesting that it's a totally separate brand and de-linked from Highlifeonline
    But I think it's a great idea… a genuninely useful community concept built around traveller needs rather than just bolted on to their main site or the Highlife site.
    Jeremy
    Found you on Alex Bainbridge's blog BTW

  4. Jeremy Head on October 31st, 2008 3:25 am

    Hadn't seem Tim O'Neil's comment by the way. He kind of says the same thing!

  5. neilmaclean on October 31st, 2008 3:33 am

    Hi Jeremy
    Yes, I am a Metrotwin subscriber and follow their twitter feed. I'll have the t-shirt next :-)
    It's very arm's-length isn't it? The only thing which really feels BA about it is the big fat Avis ad. Oh and all the other BA ads too.
    Anyway - I'm all for it and should really have given it a mention in my post.
    cheers

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