British Airways (BA) is rolling out a new facial recognition programme to bring personalised service to important customers. 

The ‘Know Me’ scheme delivers information about specific customers – such as a Silver Executive Club member or a traveller that previously experienced customer service problems – to customer service agents and senior cabin crew via an iPad in order to provide “meaningful service” for the customer.  

BA crew members can also feed back information about the airline’s most loyal customers.  

The model, which has been in development for several years, also enables the BA team to search Google Images for a photo of specific customers so they can recognise them as soon as they enter the airport or plane and proactively approach them.

BA has also set up a ‘delivery lab’ to analyse the data and improve customer communications.

Jo Boswell, head of customer analysis at BA, said: “Last year we re-committed to the ethos: To Fly. To Serve. That’s what ‘Know Me’ is all about – enabling us to recognise our customers in a way that is individual to them. Other airlines apply it in pockets to certain aspects of the travel experience, but we are looking at the whole journey from booking to collecting luggage at the carousel.

“We’re essentially trying to recreate the feeling of recognition you get in a favourite restaurant when you’re welcomed there, but in our case it will be delivered by thousands of staff to millions of customers.” 

Airline KLM recently launched its new 'Meet and Seat' scheme that allows passengers to look at the Facebook and Linked In profiles of others on the same flight.