BAA - Heathrow: The Book
After much discussion – and persuasion – with BAA (the owners of Heathrow), we convinced the corporation to appoint the first ever airport writer-in-residence to tell the story of a week at Heathrow. The resulting book would help to humanise Heathrow by capturing the emotion of the airport, the tens of thousands of people who work there, and the 67 million passengers who pass through it each year.
A brief was issued to various authors and Alain de Botton – one of the world’s most respected modern philosophers and essayists – was selected to the post. Alain was given unprecedented access to all areas of the airport and full creative control over the finished book – a bold move by Heathrow as the airport was effectively opened up for literary critique, but one that gave instant credibility to the project and allowed us to tap into the marketing power of transparency.
