Press Release - 30 November 2007
This week the British Surfing Association (BSA) is amazed to learn that British Airways (BA) has been entertaining its passengers with not one, but two, surf movies on its in-flight film channel. In light of the BA ban on the carriage of surf boards that came into effect on Tuesday 6th November, on a business class flight from London Heathrow to New York, a surfer and BA gold card holder was stunned to find the airline showing two surf films- Sony's 'Surf's Up', an animated surfing based tale, and 'Step Into Liquid', a surfing documentary. The BSA's petition for the reversal of the ban is still growing apace and now an Early Day Motion in the British Parliament has nearly 50 MPs' signatures. Although surfing continues to grow on a global scale, BA seems intent to continue to believe that surfers are in their own words a 'miniscule' minority and that not enough surfers check in boards to make it worth their while to meet their needs. However, BA is obviously hoping to use the global rise in interest in surfing to while away the hours on long haul flights. Claire Davidson, a keen surfer from London often uses BA on a weekly basis for her business class flights to Africa, Russia and America and was really shocked to hear about the surfboard ban. Claire said, "I think it is totally ridiculous that BA has banned surf boards and now to add insult to injury they are showing surf movies on their flights. It is just so ironic! I am now unable to use my BA air miles to go surfing and something needs to be done to change this." Hundreds of thousands of surfers travel each year to enjoy and develop their pastime and need to fly their boards with them. For years, top international surfers including the British Surfing Team have chosen BA above all other airlines as they have has a fair and open minded policy about board carriage. At the same time as the surfboard ban was announced BA proudly publicized the fact that it would be loosening any restrictions on their carriage of skis, snowboards, cycles, diving equipment and even guns, amongst other items.In order to turn this ban around the BSA is continuing to urge everyone who surfs to take five minutes to go online and follow their recommended action steps. Surfer action steps:1. Contact your local MPs and ask them to sign the EDM. You can find out who your local MP is and how to contact them by going to: www.theyworkforyou.com.The EDM is number 136 (MPs will be fully aware of how to access the EDM and sign it on behalf of their constituent.)2. Go onto www.britsurf.co.uk and click the 'SIGN ONLINE PETITION OF PROTEST IN THE NEWS SECTION ON THE HOME PAGE'. Follow the easy steps to sign this online petition and add any comments.3. If you have a Facebook account, join the Facebook 'British Airways Surfboard Ban' group 4. Click this link http://www.britishairways.com/travel/custrelform/public/en_gb and register a complaint with BA directly5. Encourage all other surfers to follow these steps