Here's the Tea: How British Airways Turned a Train into a Plane

July 16 2026

British Airways set out to launch its new British Accent campaign with a simple, charmingly cheeky idea: Everything’s Better With A British Accent.

To bring that message to life in New York City, the airline transformed an everyday commute into a witty, immersive brand experience that felt unmistakably British Airways.

The campaign was designed to do more than make riders smile. It also served as a reminder that British Airways connects travelers not only to London, but to many destinations across the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world.

So British Airways showed up somewhere unexpected, using IRL media to turn the 42nd Street Shuttle into a playful invitation to experience the airline’s signature voice, service, and global reach.

An Airplane Lands Beneath 42nd Street

A flight from JFK to Heathrow takes about seven hours. End to end on New York City Subway’s 42nd Street Shuttle is 90 seconds. That’s plenty of time to make a big impact.

The busiest link in the entire Subway system, the S Shuttle links Grand Central Terminal and Times Square. The line serves 100,000 commuters and visitors daily, including the upscale professionals typically found on British Airways flights (SOURCE: MTA).

The Shuttle is unique among our transit offerings in that it combines full wraps on both the exterior and interior of the train, which allowed for British Airways, its agency Uncommon Creative Studio, its media agency OMD Worldwide, which helped purchase the media, and our in-house creative team, STUDIOS, to imagine and execute a fully immersive IRL brand experience that awakened memories, captured imaginations, and even had New Yorkers speaking in their best British accent.

After all, when a train pulls up to the platform cosplaying as a plane, how can you not engage?


Modeled after a British Airways aircraft, the Shuttle exterior wrap featured authentic livery and travelers peering through aircraft-style windows. Once onboard, riders discovered that the interior had also been transformed into a British Airways cabin. Through the windows, they were transported to familiar and unexpected landmarks across Britain and Europe, while QR codes beneath each image allowed riders to further immerse themselves in the featured destination. The train seats were wrapped to match the plane’s upholstery, complete with headrests, while boarding passes placed on top promoted the campaign’s social giveaway component.

“Every nuance, every touchpoint, we wanted to make sure that the full immersiveness was captured,” said OUTFRONT Group Creative Director Tim Wasicki.

In the Real World, a Human Touch

Riders stepped on and off the train to find the experience extended further still. Overhead, crisp white British Airways banners gave the platform a sleek terminal vibe. Campaign creative ran harmoniously on digital Liveboards nearby. And on-platform announcements, delivered in a British accent, made commuters feel less like they were waiting for the Shuttle and more like they were about to board a British Airways flight.

Those announcements weren’t the only British accents heard in the station. British Airways also brought in several London Heathrow based brand ambassadors for an activation that truly brought the campaign to life. Dressed in their uniforms, they greeted Shuttle riders on the platform, surprising and delighting them with afternoon tea kits.

Inside were a scone, tiny jars of jam and clotted cream, and, of course, a bag of English tea. And that, in a nutshell, was the true genius of the campaign: it communicated not just the essence of the brand, but the British Airways flight experience itself.

"Airline advertising is usually about the destination or the seat,” said Sam Shepherd, Uncommon Creative Studio, Chief Creative Officer, New York. “[This campaign] is about the humanity and service of British Airways. That's a much more interesting place to be."

Destination Media: The British Are Coming!

As it turns out, there are a lot of British Airways loyalists in New York City – because the response was overwhelming. The activation ran for three days, with 500 snack boxes given away each day from 10am until 2pm. On the first day, all of the tea boxes were claimed by noon. By the third day, there were 30 people queued up at 9:45am to ensure they got theirs.

“I’ve been [with OUTFRONT] 18 years and I’ve never seen a campaign get this much excitement,” said Molly Baxter, Group Director, National Sales. “We had no idea, we could not have anticipated how much excitement there was gonna be for the snack boxes.”

“We basically ran out immediately,” Molly added. “People went to New York City to get a snack box…one woman called me and said that her mom was a huge fan of British Airways and they were from the UK and she was upset she couldn’t get one. So I met her in the lobby and gave her one that was in the office.”

British Airways Chief Customer and People Officer Lisa Tremble perhaps put it best: “This campaign is about showing that it’s not just where we fly that makes British Airways different; it’s how we make people feel along the way.”

It was clear that British Airways and its passengers share a powerful emotional bond; by tapping into the airline’s signature sights, sounds, and tastes in real life, we were able to tap into that well of emotion and convert it to action.

Interactive IRL: The #BABritishAccent Challenge

Through scanning the QR codes in the ad creative, Subway riders could learn about the campaign’s interactive component: the #BABritishAccent Challenge. To enter, would-be Brits were invited to step onto the Shuttle, record their best British accent, and tag @British_Airways on Instagram or Facebook. Five grand prize winners each received 120,000 Avios (BA’s version of frequent flyer miles), enough to cover two round-trip economy flights from New York to London.

The use of an IRL touchpoint as a portal to the brand’s digital world demonstrates our medium’s power as a force multiplier for other channels. This campaign also ran across social channels and CTV, but the activation was executed strictly in the real world. And it was the real-world elements of the campaign that went viral and piled up earned media. The coverage from outlets like Time Out, the New York Post, Campaign, and Travel and Tour World accumulated over 64 million UMVs (SOURCE: Cision). Travel creator @adventurous_anders amplified the campaign to his 31,000 followers. And the New York Post’s @nypostcitylife handle broadcast it to over 52,000 more in a post that earned 5,000 likes.

Combining IRL media with other formats like is proven to pay big dividends. Adding IRL to a TV campaign makes it 61% more likely to improve customer acquisition, 34% more likely to increase market share, and 23% more likely to lift profits. Adding IRL to a social-only campaign makes it a whopping 275% more likely to improve customer loyalty or market share (SOURCE: Rapport/IPA Databank/Peter Field).

Inside the Collaborative Creative Process

As out-of-the-ordinary as the execution was, the campaign was typical of how OUTFRONT works with enterprise brands. British Airways has a very well-defined identity, and a very deep relationship with its creative agency, Uncommon Creative Studio. We understood that our role was not to reinvent the wheel but rather to help facilitate the expression of that brand voice with full fidelity in a real-world environment, and to ensure that our advertisers can take full advantage of the opportunities that only actual physical presence can provide.

Tim noted that key to the creative was its attention to detail. “If you're going on a plane, what are those nuances? We wanted to take full advantage of those subtleties. So there were a lot of rough sketches, just making sure that we're in line with their vision and what they wanted from this campaign.”

“Our team did a really good job of staying connected to [Uncommon Creative Studio & British Airways] so we weren't going too far in our own direction,” said Molly. “We had to be very aligned with them on all things, so there were times when they were like, no, we don't like that. And there were times that were like, this is amazing. And we just had to continue to check in with them.

“But once this was about to launch, I think we all felt like it was our child's graduation. We were just really proud and really felt like all the late nights and the long calls and all of that was well worth it. And this is kind of why we do what we do.”

Tim told us more. “We built out the framework, and then we started to build out the nuance of every detail. From the windows to the locations, identifying photography, identifying what those Easter egg moments could be once the framework was built out. After that, the banners came into conversation. The activation came into conversation. We were working in tandem all throughout the development. Obviously, we had the goal; we had what we wanted to kind of get out of this, but it was very flexible as far as when we were developing it. So to the very last second, we were making modifications. We were updating certain things.”

“In all, it was a pretty organic, flexible, chaotic, beautiful thing,” he concluded.

And in that sense, IRL media is just like real life itself.


British Airways’ brilliant campaign reminds us that not only is the best advertising found IRL, but the best advertising is the kind that could only be found in real life.

When you’re ready to make that kind of advertising, we’d like to make it with you. So get in touch.

Author: Jay Fenster, Senior Manager, Content Marketing @ OUTFRONT

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