The question of London government’s close relationship with British Airways has been covered in the past but a comment on this thread drew me back to it.

As is pointed out, you can now find official mayoral posters on the Tube system advertising British Airways. Here’s the ad [left].

In addition to being mayoral ads, one assumes that these are Transport for London/London Underground poster sites, rather than commercial poster sites. TfL sites are given over to main transport messages to passengers, with a proportion of those for mayoral campaigns and events. In most cases they would carry the mayor’s logo.

This has been nagging away at me for some time.

I can see that there would be circumstances in which a relationship with a commercial company that brought clear benefits to London may appear on mayoral ads.  An example might be a mayoral event sponsored by a private company. (That would have to be governed by a legal framework designed to keep it fair and in the public interest).

This seems to bring advertising benefits to BA without a particularly clearly-stated policy benefit.

If the idea is to promote tourism between New York and London then that does not explain why only BA appears on the ads.  Other carriers fly to New York. If the aim was to promote tourism in that way then one might expect other carriers to be involved.

This is not the first time this issue has arisen. The Guardian reported earlier this year “Boris Johnson will today help out British Airways’s commercial interests by speaking out against using video conferencing as a way of doing business, at a press conference in New York which he is attending courtesy of four business class tickets provided by the airline…In July BA launched a “Face to Face” campaign to encourage business meetings in person, claiming that ‘tangible, human connections are a crucial driver of business growth’. The mayor’s spokesman said Johnson’s role at the BA campaign in the terrace lounge at Terminal 7 of JFK airport  today would be to see the winners of the campaign off to pitch their business ideas face to face in London.”

There are some pretty obvious climate change-related politics to all of that. But there are also questions about whether it is wise for the mayor of the city to have established a relationship with one commercial company that may promote its profile and interests that is not enjoyed by its competitors. If there are benefits to London from this initiative they are inadequately explained.

But, whatever the explanation, it doesn’t feel right.