ABTA Convention Special: British Airways has admitted it introduced a premium rate phone line for agent inquiries to weed out non-essential calls.
BA chief executive, Rod Eddington told the Cairo Convention that the vast number of calls received at BA call centres were for information that was readily available elsewhere, such as on the BA website.
Mr Eddington said: “Since charging more for the phone service, we have lost those calls”. When pressed by Convention Moderator, and BBC presenter, Dermot Murnaghan, Mr Eddington added: “We don’t make money on it [the premium rate phone line]”.
Mr Eddington was responding to an agent’s question during the first session of the ABTA Convention this morning. The agent argued that BA’s number was considerably more expensive to call than those of the no-frills carriers, which mostly had low-rate 0870 numbers.
Read the latest news from the ABTA Cairo Convention 2002:
Rivals consider switching off MyTravel
Carrick makes robust defence of MyTravel
BA chief Rod Eddington: We got it wrong
Industry reports tough year
New rule on consumer protection
ABTA against new airport in the South East
TUI plans image boost for Thomson
JMC an expensive waste – some might say
Most package holidays still booked with agents
Differentiation the key for agents
Consumers in the north ‘particularly resistant to agent fees’
No-frills carriers adopt subtle differences to survive
Families will seek Spring and Autumn sun
