Recreate the British Airways first class experience – at home! Carrier puts items from its premium cabins up for sale, from crockery and hot towels to ex-747 Champagne flutes, amid £5.4billion losses
- BA said you can ‘bring the magic of flying with BA into your own home’
- For £12 you can buy the top-cabin hot towels (which obviously arrive cold)
- Items for sale from business class include the casserole dish and serving tray
For the first time in its history, British Airways has decided to unlock the doors to its warehouse this Christmas to give customers and aviation fans the unique opportunity to get their hands on items from British Airways aircraft that have circled the globe hundreds of times.
It comes amid losses of over £5billion for BA’s owner, IAG.
Customers and collectors can recreate an authentic BA first class experience by snapping up bespoke inflight dining items such as William Edwards plates (from £25), soup bowls (£30), cups (from £5) and saucers (£5).
For the first time, BA has decided to unlock the doors to its warehouse this Christmas. You can buy this first class BA soup bowl for £30 from whatabuy.co.uk/british-airways
Snuggle up after you’ve eaten off your first class crockery with this £9 first class day blanket
Other first class items on sale include the bread basket (£42), the day blanket (£9) and the coaster (£5). And for £12 you can buy the top-cabin hot towels (which obviously arrive cold).
Prefer BA’s business class (Club World) style?
Items from this cabin you can snag include the China casserole dish (£12), the black serving tray (£10) and the slippers (£10).
There are items in the ‘yard sale’ from BA’s recently retired Boeing 747 fleet, too, such as Champagne flutes (£6), the ‘full meal equipment box’ (£75), the top-loading waste disposal trolley (£150), the ‘full meal equipment box’ (£75) and the four-shelf oven rack (£50).
How the BA first class dinner service looks in reality
This British Airways first class bread basket is up for sale for £42
This ex-BA 747 four-shelf oven rack has clearly seen some action. Yours for £50
Rob Burgess, Editor of frequent flyer website www.headforpoints.com, said: ‘This is not the first time that BA has sold off excess stock, indeed staff sales at HQ are a regular occurrence, but this offers the airline the chance to raise some additional funds given so few people are flying right now.
‘By opening the sale up to the public, BA is also giving people the chance to purchase fun items that will make great Christmas gifts for any self-confessed aviation enthusiasts.
‘What could be nicer than unwrapping a British Airways first class day blanket to cosy up in this Yule, or eating your turkey dinner off of the finest BA William Edwards Crockery?’
Why is British Airways selling off this stock?
This is not the first time that BA has sold off excess stock, indeed staff sales at HQ are a regular occurrence, but this offers the airline the chance to raise some additional funds
Rob Burgess, Editor of frequent flyer website www.headforpoints.com
Mr Burgess continued: ‘It is not entirely clear, but the lack of flying in the past months means that breakages has significantly reduced. BA also plans to introduce a new service in the near future although it’s likely this will be postponed. Plus, given the reduced quality in the food offering right now, perhaps there’s not the need for very posh crockery.’
Carolina Martinoli, British Airways’ Director of Brand and Customer Experience, said: ‘This is an incredible one-off opportunity for people to bring the magic of flying with British Airways into their own homes.
‘We know that these special items will fly and we are delighted to be able to offer them in time for Christmas to give people the opportunity to make it memorable during a difficult year.’
Items are available to purchase from whatabuy.co.uk/british-airways. British Airways is encouraging customers to share photographs of themselves using the items in their own homes tagging @British_Airways and using the hashtag #BAathome.
British Airways’ parent company IAG swung to a pre-tax loss of six billion euros (£5.4billion) for the nine months to the end of September.
This compared with a 2.3billion euros (£2.1billion) pre-tax profit during the same period a year ago.