Originally Posted by
shamrock_f22
Whilst I agree that low cost carriers have shifted passengers perspective of what's low cost and affordable, I don't think all of BA's paying population want both first class service and low cost. I know lots of people who were loyal to the brand and happily paid extra for tickets for many years.
What BA did was slowly erode the standard of their service causing these passengers to question value for money for what was slowly becoming a low cost carrier service. You can't do that if you're offering First and Biz worldwide and expect pax to keep schtum.
BA also needed to accept that if it wanted to remain a premium carrier then it couldn't have 100% seat fulfilment and fly every aircraft at capacity with the routes it has at the prices it charges.
Where we seem to have ended up is somewhere in the middle. A brand which is still broadly speaking perceived as premium, staffed by crew used to giving top service, run as a low cost carrier, treating its customers with contempt like a certain low cost carrier but marketed as a premium carrier. Inevitably, its going to lead to the downfall of BA unless something radically changes.
What you allude to is precisely the problem with MBA driven spread sheet airlines: Cost is but part of the equation, but is the only part they know.
Driving unit cost lower only achieves so much.
As the late, Herb Kelleher eloquently put it (paraphrasing) " You can have the lowest cost, or the highest revenue and still go broke. What matters is the difference between the two"
The new breed of airline managers, pumped out of business schools know little of value premium and believe cost is the only thing the matters.
As their business schools taught them, "when you are a hammer, every problem is a nail".