At FTE World Innovation Summit, British Airways Announces Doubling of On-Time Performance Through AI and £7 Billion Transformation
Originally published on APEX
British Airways CEO Sean Doyle and Pittsburgh International Airport CEO Christina Cassotis during their session at the Future Travel Experience World Innovation Summit.
At the Future Travel Experience (FTE) World Innovation Summit held today in Pittsburgh, British Airways announced that it has significantly improved its on-time performance, attributing the achievement to artificial intelligence, forecasting, optimization, and machine learning. These technologies were deployed as part of the airline’s £7 billion transformation program launched in 2023, which has ushered in a new era of predictive, data-driven decision-making focused on reducing delays and enhancing the passenger experience.
“Whilst disruption to our flights is often outside of our control,” British Airways CEO Sean Doyle stated at the event, “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.”
The airline’s performance breakthrough has been driven in part by a targeted £100 million investment in improving operational resilience. British Airways developed a suite of proprietary digital tools and applications and hired 600 additional operational staff at London Heathrow. “It enables our people to do the things they love, which is to meet our customers,” Doyle said. These changes created a more agile and adaptive ground operation capable of reacting quickly to fluctuating conditions.
In the first quarter of 2025, 86 percent of British Airways flights from Heathrow departed on time. This marked the best punctuality performance in the airline’s history and represented an 87 percent increase compared to 2008, when only 46 percent of flights from Heathrow departed on schedule. The airline also reported that on 38 of the 89 operational days in the first quarter, more than 90 percent of flights departed on time. In April 2025, two-thirds of all British Airways flights from Heathrow departed ahead of their scheduled departure time, a 20 percent improvement over April 2024 and a 100 percent improvement over April 2023.
British Airways has placed technology in the hands of operational staff to drive these improvements. “The tech colleagues have at their fingertips has been a real game changer for performance,” Doyle said. “Giving them the confidence to make informed decisions for our customers based on a rapid assessment of vast amounts of data.”
The airline employs more than 100 data scientists who work on various innovation projects aimed at increasing performance and resilience. A significant component of this strategy includes the migration of data centers to the cloud, a project that is currently 90 percent complete. The migration supports improved digital stability, greater scalability, and real-time access to data essential for operational decision-making.
Among the applications now in use is a gate allocation tool that assigns arriving aircraft to gates based on passengers’ next destinations. This system has helped reduce the time needed for connecting flights and has saved more than 160,000 minutes in delays. Another application is a real-time weather program that reroutes aircraft to avoid poor weather conditions. The program connects directly with Air Traffic Control flow management centers across Europe and has helped prevent 243,000 minutes of potential delays. “We are doing a lot of work with partners like Eurocontrol and NAS to optimize alternative flight plans if we have air traffic control congestion,” Doyle said.
Sean Doyle with APEX GCEO Dr. Joe Leader and FTE CEO Daniel Coleman discuss British Airways implementation of new technologies that enhance the passenger experience.
British Airways has also implemented a predictive tool that analyzes real-time operational data to highlight routes that could face delays. This allows preventative measures to be put in place before disruptions occur. Additionally, the airline has deployed a runway support tool that determines the best course of action during crisis scenarios by analyzing data from planned schedules, crew rosters, and passenger itineraries. The tool helps determine whether to cancel, delay, or reassign flights and has been used to model 163 disruption events across 2024 and 2025. Doyle explained, “When we had the power outage at Heathrow, we were able to rebuild and operate 90% of our flights the following day and 100% the next day.”
“It’s exciting that our industry is able to harness this capability,” Doyle commented. “Which will develop even further in the months and years to come.”
British Airways confirmed that it will continue rolling out new technologies to further improve performance. As the airline expands its use of predictive tools and AI, it positions itself not just as a leader in on-time performance but as a model of innovation in global aviation.
