British Airways (BA) will spend £100 million (€148.3 million) revamping its business-class cabins and installing wider beds.
Battling Virgin Atlantic to woo high-paying passengers, BA said today it would increase the number of business-class seats by 8 per cent, improve in-flight entertainment and splash out on a new interior design over the next 18 months.
BA will reposition its flat bed and make it 25 per cent wider and change the cabin interior to offer more privacy between seats. Like rivals, it also employed celebrity designers to give its cabin a more modern feel
"This investment will have a handsome return. It will still take a long time for competitors to come up to the BA standard. It is a fiercely competitive environment," BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh said.
BA was the first to introduce lie-flat seats in 2000 for long-haul travellers. Virgin later introduced a new upper class cabin with flat beds and a new herringbone layout, which it says has enabled it to steal market share from BA.
"They [BA] are only trying to catch up, and they are a whole generation away of where we were three years ago when we launched the Upper Class suite," a Virgin spokesman said, saying its business-class offering was under review.