BA sells off champagne glasses as air travel demand nosedives

Striking: British Airways pilots ended a two-day walkout yesterday
Getty Images
John Dunne @jhdunne23 November 2020

British Airways is selling off champagne flutes, crockery, blankets and even slippers in response to a nosedive in demand for air travel.

The airline’s advertising promotion promises aviation buffs can "create an authentic First Class flying experience at home" by purchasing the items,

Drinks trolleys, bread baskets and coasters are also among the products being sold off, as the coronavirus has grounded much of the company’s fleet.

Some of the items come from the carrier’s recently retired Boeing 747s.

A set of six brandy glasses is on sale for £12, while a set of five Club World slippers has a price tag of £10.

The number of passengers flown by the airline between July and September was down 85 per cent compared with the same period in 2019.

In September, then-chief executive Alex Cruz said the carrier was burning through an average of £20 million of cash per day.

It proposed to cut up to 12,000 jobs.

 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 in to 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.”

People wanting to purchase an item can visit whatabuy.co.uk/british-airways, although the site crashed shortly after the sale was launched.

In July, British Airways auctioned off some of its art collection for a total of £2.2 million.

The majority of the figure was for Bridget Riley painting Cool Edge, which went for £1.9 million.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in