British Airways has won the very first Business Travel Show ‘Innovation Award’ for its groundbreaking ‘Manage My Booking’ self-service strategy. The award, which was announced at the Business Travel Show at London’s Olympia last night, is a new addition to the show this year and was introduced to recognise innovation, ingenuity and true leadership in the business travel industry.

15 nominated companies and the winner were voted for by a panel of highly-respected, independent business travel writers. These nominations were British Airways, Emirates, ETA, Eurostar, flybe GEBTA, Harry Weeks Travel, Hotelscene, London City Airport, Lufthansa, OAG, Purple Parking, UK Explore, Ultimate Limousines and Virgin Trains. Six making it through to the final shortlist:

? British Airways - for its ‘Manage My Booking’ service

? ETA - for its online RFP service

? Eurostar - for its revamped business class carriages, and the introduction of faster train times

? Harry Weeks Travel - for its self-service rail ticketing system

? Lufthansa - for the introduction of in-flight high speed internet access

? OAG - for its ‘Flight Finder’ system

After much debate and deliberation from the panel, British Airways’ ‘Manage My Booking’ service was declared the winner. ‘Manage My Booking’ empowers BA’s passengers to request a seat, select a special in-flight meal, check in online, print their own boarding card, manage their Executive Club membership and mileage, and arrange flight changes and upgrades.

Paul Robin, Event Director of the Business Travel Show explained: “‘Manage My Booking’ is a more than worthy winner of our very first Innovation Award- the service has proved massively popular with customers since its inception. On face value, it’s a very simple idea designed to make life easier for both passengers and staff. But they say the simple ideas are always the best, and we have every confidence that this is an innovation that will be rolled out by other airlines in the very near future.”
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