BA offers free flights to support SMEs

Thursday, 30th April 2009

British Airways has joined forces with UKTI - UK Trade & Investment - and BritishAmerican Business, in an effort to held small- and medium-sized UK enterprises cope with the economic downturn.

The carrier is also encouraging other large businesses to become involved in providing expertise, products and services to smaller British companies, in addition to the help that is already being offered.

Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA, said: “SMEs are the backbone of the British economy and they are hurting badly, with 120 of them closing every week. We’d love to see other British businesses pulling together in order to help the UK out of the recession.”

Walsh added: “We’ve put up the flights to allow the SMEs to travel to do business and we’d be delighted if other companies would join us by offering services and skills that will bring real value and benefit.”

The aim of the 5,000 free flights is to support the efforts of SMEs that are relatively new and those that are looking at expansion into new markets abroad with the help of UKTI.

Independent research has found that over half of UKTI’s customer businesses were seeing rising demand from foreign markets.

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→ BA launch new deal to raise ticket sales
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