Case Study – How British Airways saved over £900,000 per year

British Airways’ Safety and Emergency Procedures division (SEP) is responsible for training new and existing cabin crew on aircraft layouts, systems and important feature locations required for flight. In order to get CAA certification to change aircraft types, cabin crew have to undertake a classroom training course and then wait for the aircraft type to become available in engineering in order to complete the practical element of the training.

Once an aircraft is identified, the group have to be assembled, put onto a bus and taken to the field, security cleared and then moved hurriedly through the aircraft while it is being serviced and cleaned. The result is that many cabin crew who need the aircraft visit to complete their certification are often grounded indefinitely while they wait for this aspect of the training to be completed. An additional problem is created by each aircraft type having small variations in design and thus the crew do not get to view all these variants first hand due to the availability of the craft.

The Challenge
British Airways approached LINE with a challenging brief: create a computer-based experience that gives a sense of the relative size and dimensions of the Boeing 777, interior and exterior; build it in such a way that the programme could be adapted quickly to create virtual visits for the remaining aircraft types that British Airways flies; and make sure that the ultimate design solution would gain CAA approval as a substitute for in-person aircraft visits.

Solution
The SEP division wanted an overall programme design that gave priority to the imagery and video assets. LINE’s design consists of a virtual environment which links 360 degree panoramic images together with embedded video assets. The programme is built entirely in Flash and uses an advanced 3-dimensional display of icons which launch instructional video segments within the panoramic areas. Inside a panoramic area, users control their movement by using up to three different navigational methods. Users progress through the aircraft either linearly or via an interactive map.

Created in partnership with the SEP division, British Airways supplied all imagery, video and audio assets for the programme.

The virtual aircraft programme is used as a training tool by SEP trainers alongside classroom training.

Results
The creation and release of the 777 Virtual Aircraft Visit will save British Airways £984,000 per annum on training costs, downtime of crew, travel and security expenses.

The programme incorporates all variants of the aircraft which ensures that all crew now have exposure to these prior to flight.

The innovative design solution is built modularly so that additional assets from new aircraft types can be easily slotted into place, quickly and inexpensively.

Client Comments: -
Baljit Gill, Training Manager SEP & Avmed says, “Our BA Way values include to be ‘Safe and Secure’. To do this, we provide our cabin crew and flight crew with Safety Equipment & Procedures Training (SEP) on an annual basis. To ensure our training instructors meet the very high standard required to do provide this training, we make our Instructors training more rigorous than ever before.

The Virtual Visit programme enables British Airways to use the 777 Virtual Aircraft Tour as a learning tool in which it shows every part of the aircraft and its systems. To find an available aircraft on the ground can prove to be a real challenge, however with this programme anyone who needs to see the aircraft can use the Virtual Tour. In addition to this the variants of the 777 Aircraft have been included in the Virtual Tour. This enables our SEP Instructors to see the differences when in real time, there would be limited availability of all variants of the aircraft being available on the ground. ”

We are really pleased with the 777 Virtual Aircraft Visit. This programme clearly shows the high level of support and investment that British Airways is willing to make towards passenger and crew safety. LINE has created the most sophisticated training package we have used to date – and our SEP Training Instructors love it.

The 777 Virtual Aircraft Visit not only makes excellent business sense, but the virtual environment coupled with the classroom training and practice give our Cabin Crew the knowledge and confidence to safely convert to new aircraft types. We will continue to invest in advanced training techniques that are shown to improve the safety of our passengers and crew.