Molton Brown to part company with British Airways

Tina Milton

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The beauty company will end its agreement with British Airways in September 2007.

Molton Brown is to terminate its partnership with British Airways (BA) in 2007. The company has decided not to re-tender for the supply of amenity bags for Club World passengers or the management of its travel spas in BA lounges at London Heathrow and New York JFK airports.

Best known for its bath and body products, Molton Brown is looking to forge new key partnerships within the travel industry from the end of 2007, as well as re-focus its spa division resources on evolving the customer proposition and expansion into the US and key markets in Asia, such as Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Molton Brown has been working with British Airways for six years. CEO Sara Halton said: “The partnership between us and BA has been a long and very valuable one. It introduced thousands of customers, particularly men, to the Molton Brown experience – enabling us to enjoy a much more even male and female customer split than traditional beauty brands. We are immensely grateful to British Airways for those introductions and the general exposure our brand received during what was a period of enormous growth for us. It’s been a great platform to help us with global expansion into the US and Asia.”

Group marketing director Amy Nelson-Bennett said: “With British Airways preparing to operate from the new terminal five at Heathrow from next autumn, it is time for Molton Brown to assess the future value of the relationship. More people are travelling, people are travelling more frequently and security concerns will continue. We feel that there is a role for Molton Brown within ‘journey management’ to help passengers cope with the stresses of international travel better. We are now looking at how we develop that in the future.”

Molton Brown and British Airways will still launching a new-style amenity bag this autumn in the airline’s Club World cabin.

Between 1991 and 2005 Molton Brown enjoyed annual growth of 34.5%. In 2005 the company was acquired by by Kao Group, the world’s seventh largest manufacturer of cosmetics and consumer products with an annual turnover in excess of £4.725m. The company distributes products through 17 channels to more than 1,500 five-star hotels in 60 countries and 500 retail doors worldwide including its own retail outlets, department store concessions, wholesales accounts, spas and in-flight retail.