British Airways recently announced the rollout of 15,000 iPhone XRs to its cabin crew in an effort to enhance customer service. The rollout follows a successful trial of outfitting senior cabin crew with iPads on every flight.

The iPhone XRs provide cabin crew with customer information, including previous flight and meal preferences. The goal is to personalize every passenger interaction and provide passengers with additional assistance as required during flights.

“Our customers spend up to 14 hours with our cabin crew on a single flight and we know from the recent success at the Skytrax Awards that the care provided by our people has a huge impact on the overall customer experience and is what sets us apart from other airlines. This investment is about further empowering our crew and providing them with everything they need to deliver the very best service to our customers while in the air,” commented Karen Slinger, head of inflight customer experience, British Airways.

“Recently, when a customer realized that he had forgotten to order a special meal, he was really impressed when I quickly took out the phone, logged onto ba.com and ordered a meal for his return journey — all within a matter of minutes in the middle of the flight,” said Bradley Smith, cabin crew, British Airways. “It felt so rewarding to be able to immediately resolve the situation for the customer. All my crew reference guides are also loaded onto the phone, so everything I need is in my pocket throughout each flight; it really has made a huge difference already.”