Airline says it has used AI to reduce delays for passengers

The airline said it has invested £100 million in improving its operational resilience

People watch a British Airways plane at Heathrow on Saturday (Maja Smiejkowska/PA) (PA Wire)

British Airways claims a dramatic improvement in its flight punctuality at Heathrow, attributing the boost to a £100 million investment in artificial intelligence and other digital tools.

The airline reports that two-thirds of its April departures from its west London hub left ahead of schedule. This represents a more than two-fold increase compared to April 2023 and a nearly 20 per cent jump from April 2024.

BA credits this enhanced performance to its adoption of "artificial intelligence, forecasting, optimisation and machine learning". The investment has facilitated the development of a suite of digital tools and apps designed to streamline operations and improve resilience.

The airline's statement suggests these technological advancements are playing a key role in getting flights off the ground more efficiently.

One system enables staff to allocate aircraft landing at Heathrow to stands based on a live analysis of passengers’ onward travel plans, reducing the likelihood of missed connections.

This is estimated to have saved 160,000 minutes of delays.

Another system proactively reroutes aircraft to avoid areas of poor weather, preventing some 243,000 minutes of delays.

British Airways attributed the enhanced performance to its use of “artificial intelligence, forecasting, optimisation and machine learning” (PA Archive)

During the first three months of this year, some 86 per cent of British Airways flights from Heathrow departed on time, according to the airline.

That was its best performance on record and is up from 46 per cent in 2008, the carrier added.

British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle told an innovation summit in Pittsburgh in the US: “Improving operational performance is a key part of our investment programme because we know the impact delays and disruption can have on our customers.

“Whilst disruption to our flights is often outside of our control, our focus has been on improving the factors we can directly influence and putting in place the best possible solutions for our customers when it does happen.

“That’s why we’ve invested £100 million in our own operational resilience, putting funding into technology and tools, and devising a better way of working on the ground at Heathrow as well as creating an additional 600 operational roles into the airport.

“The tech (our) colleagues have at their fingertips has been a real gamechanger for performance, giving them the confidence to make informed decisions for our customers based on a rapid assessment of vast amounts of data.

“It’s exciting that our industry is able to harness this capability, which will develop even further in the months and years to come.”

British Airways said it will start using additional tools over the coming months.