Come on, this is marketing 101 - these are two companies operating different business models to different segments of the market, so if they stay in their corners they'll do fine. Sure, where they overlap there will be some blood.... but then I don't see FR trying to sell interline tickets on multi-segment intercontinental flights either..
Do you see pax flying longhaul including a 50 minute drive to a regional airport then taking a bus and train for 90 minutes to connect LTN/LHR for a long haul flight ?
Risk is entirely with FR. If BA wanted to compete it simply aims fares (a highly restricted product) at the 20% or so of a city pair that constitute the low cost carrier market and put FR out of business by taking the pax away from the regional airports that trade free landing fees for pax numbers.... What is BA's risk LHR/EZE against FR ?
By the way BA, you could always hire me !!
Incidentally Delta's woes ex ATL are probably in part because it allowed Air Tran to develop a better domestic product (you need to get that right) and compete with DL side by side on most of DL's trunk domestic routes, ie ATL/LGA. As a result DL faced the kudzoo effect!! BD could never do that to BA because of the slot scarcity in LHR so BA is relatively safe against a domestic competitor. They do have problems though, as AF, LH & EK etc will try and syphon pax out of BA's long haul operation, so it becomes the battle of the hubs and competing alliances.... So T5 is key. Will it be better than AMS vision for 2010 ? Doubt it....
Last edited by stagn8; 6th Oct 2005 at 09:34.