British Airways i360: British Airways i360 CEO Eleanor Harris says farewell

Happy New Year and welcome to 2017 everyone! This will be my last column as I am stepping down as CEO of British Airways i360 at the end of 2016 and will be joining the Royal Museums in Greenwich in January.

When I first started as CEO, it was fair to say, our project had its fair share of critics, but I have been gratified to see public perceptions transformed over the past two years and continue to change as more and more people experience the attraction for themselves. We follow in a good tradition: the Eiffel Tower and London Eye also had its critics before they opened and are now landmarks for those Paris and London!

2016 was an incredible year. On 2nd August we welcomed journalists for their first “flight” onboard British Airways i360 followed by members of the public on 4 August. I was lucky enough to press the button on the inaugural flight with friends and family and in just over 3 weeks 100,000 visitors had “flown” and experienced the incredible 360 degree views.

In 2016, we also opened the Nyetimber Sky Bar, Belle Vue brasserie, West Pier Tea rooms, our gift shop, our beachside corporate event rooms and recruited and trained nearly 100 people to run the attraction. Behind the scenes this meant hours of planning, product design and organisation to bring it all to fruition! This is a great time to thank my incredible team.

Few people realise that I have been working on creating British Airways i360 with the architects David Marks and Julia Barfield for more than 10 years. It has been an incredible roller coaster of a journey and we little imagined when they dreamt up the i360 concept that we would be faced by a global financial crisis which delayed the opening by 8 years!

I have been gratified to see public perceptions transformed over the past two years

Major milestones for me during the past decade were firstly winning planning consent in 2006 with unanimous cross-party support from all three political parties, followed by securing the funding through a Public-Private partnership with Brighton and Hove City Council in 2014. The first spade in the ground quickly followed in 2014, although during the first year there was little proof for all the construction effort as the manufacturing for the glass pod and steel tower took place off site, and all the work in Brighton was ‘in the ground’ moving a Victorian sewer and major electrical cables and creating the foundations. Then in an incredible 10 weeks over summer 2015, the 162 metre tower went up changing the city’s skyline forever.

Probably my proudest achievement was bringing British Airways in as our headline sponsor. Not only was this important financially for our business plan, but the partnership promises to be a major boost for tourism in the region, as BA is promoting the BAi360 around the world. It was a fitting partnership for me, as I first started my career as a graduate trainee at BA!

I was also delighted to bring in Nyetimber as the sponsor of the Sky Bar (turning down offers from very well established champagne brands). It has been my mission to champion local companies: the restaurant serves food that has been caught, reared or grown in the region, whilst the Nyetimber Sky Bar onboard the pod show cases the finest Sussex drinks. The gift shop sells unique bespoke products created by local artists and all printed material is manufactured in Sussex. We have also partnered with 14 regional companies as commercial partners.

I definitely won’t miss my commute from London! The increasingly diabolical service on Southern Trains has made it difficult to juggle my job with seeing my young family and I have missed too many bedtimes. I do hope that 2017 will bring a resolution to this for the benefit of everyone living or working in Sussex.

I will be really sad to say goodbye to Brighton, which has been the centre of my world for the past two and a half years. I have made some great friends in the city and enjoyed the incredible spirit of positive collaboration amongst the business community and our neighbours, which is unique to here. I’d like to thank everyone for making me so welcome and wish you farewell.