British Airways announces 'trial' and rolls out new rules for UK passengers

British Airways passengers are set to get an Amazon-style booking app. The airline - which is rivalled by the likes of United Airlines, American Airlines, Fly Emirates and more - is overhauling its website as part of £7bn modernisation programme.

British Airways CEO Sean Doyle compared the app changes to an "Amazon-style" system which allows passengers to book flights in just a few clicks. He told the Telegraph at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) airline summit that this upgrade was "very different" to anything else they have done, with the entire website scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.

He explained: "It’s embracing technology in a way we haven’t done since the dot.com boom and looking ahead at future proofing the business. The website’s been around for 22 years. We were leaders in it many years ago and we’d improved it down through the years.

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"But we’ve been falling behind and we need to catch up and leapfrog the rest." The new website is being tested for a number of passengers, with plans to roll it out further later in the year following positive feedback, the airline has said.

Passengers flying from London Gatwick to Bari, Cagliari and Catania, as well as Montpellier in France and Turkey's Antalya can trial the website. Mr Doyle said the upgrade will seek to take an “omni-channel” approach, with people getting the same familiar experience via the new app, on BA.com, or when viewing the website on their mobile phone.

Mr Doyle said: “The most important thing about an app is that the repeatable processes, that people rely on time and time and time again, work well.” Mr Doyle said: “We’re putting in a lot of resource and implementing a new model there which is really beginning to drive an improvement in punctuality and operational resilience.”