Originally Posted by
intortola
I take exception to this, living in the NE Caribbean, for years myself and many others used BA Club World several times a year from Antigua back to UK. Now, a vast majority of us travel back via Florida or New York to use Norwegians PE cabin. The staff onboard are so much friendlier than BA, despite the fact that you dont get a fully lie flat bed the cost saving is significant. Norwegian have a far superior product to BA these days.
Nobody doubts that Norwegian, when it works, is a great product. The problem is it’s not being sold at the right price. Of course passengers are going to love that but it’s not a state of affairs that can carry on for much longer. They may be described as a thorn in BA’s side but in reality they’re more like a splinter. After all the majority of Norwegian punters are people who couldn’t previously afford to fly long haul, BA were hardly reliant on them to start with. IAG made £2Billion of profit this year (and have been making ever increasing profits ever since Norwegian dipped their toe in the long haul waters) whereas Norwegian are heavily debt laden with a business model that is less than resilient.
Racedo to be profitable they're going to have to raise fares. Especially as they are now focusing on primary airports from the London market. Catch 22 situation as by doing that they’ll be eroding much of their original customer base and going up against competitors who have much greater economies of scale, better business product and frequencies.
It’s great to root for the little guy but there are some harsh realities at work here. I’m not staunch lover of BA, they pay my mortgage and that’s about it. I’m fully confident that they’ll be able to carry on doing that successfully for the rest of my career at least with or without the competition from Norwegian.