British Airways wants its new jumbo jets to feel like a boutique hotel

As British Airways prepares to receive its first Dreamliners and A380s, the man charged with keeping customers happy outlines his plans. What three words scare the hell out of a British Airways cabin crew? Brace, brace, brace? Engine latch open? Try saying: “Van der Post.” I first heard the words before I had even heard of Frank van der Post, BA’s new consumer boss. I was flying from Boston to London and the cabin crew were agitated. “Van der Post is on board,” they whispered. “VAN DER POST!” It was not the man himself. It was more serious – his wife. The crew knew they were being watched and had to be on their A game. Service that day was the best I’ve ever had. “Oh, please don’t mention that. I hate that kind of thing,” van der Post says when I first meet him. He doesn’t hate it, of course. He loves it. Because it is his job to raise BA’s game and make it the world’s favourite airline again. After a decade in which BA has been buffeted by strikes, ash clouds, price-fixing allegations and Heathrow hell, the airline is hoping that a new era will begin next week. On Wednesday, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner will land in London, fresh off the Boeing production line in Seattle (where engineers will have fitted new batteries to make sure it does not catch fire as earlier models have). BA’s finest will be there to greet it. They will be back on the tarmac a week later to welcome their second new baby – a very big baby. The national flag carrier’s first Airbus A380 “superjumbo” will fly in from Airbus headquarters in Toulouse. The jets are the first all-new long-haul aircraft BA has introduced since the first Boeing 747 jumbo landed at Heathrow more than a generation ago. Overall, BA is spending £5  billion on 12 Airbus A380s and 24 787s between now and 2017. A further 18 787s and 18 new Airbus A350 long-haul jets will arrive by 2023. To cap it all, BA’s 100-strong short-haul fleet of Airbus A321s, A320s and A319s will be refitted, from the pointy end to the loos in the back, over the next two years. “We’ve got lots of new toys!” va