Originally Posted by barryt
Richard Branson knows what he's doing...
But then again, he's always been light-years ahead of BA....
Except when crossing the Pond before October '03!
Actually BA had 744s some years before VS. They were going to nearly every port VS flies to, years before VS. They had flat beds... years before VS.
Not wanting to get into a slanging match, but yer got yer facts wrong.
Maybe BA have other (commercial) things on their minds to think about (like getting their pension deficit sorted, like numerous other FTSE-100 companies)before stumping up major capex money for new airframes when they've got a pretty good mix for their route structure as it is. There are less than ten routes BA flies, which might support the 380 - and importantly, the infrastructure associated with it. BA has previously said that if it could trade their 744s for 777s it'd jump at it - so clearly jumping into the point-to-point camp (hence possibly a more willing 787 or 350 customer).
Not actually that bad a commercial strategy to let someone else suffer whilst the early bugs are ironed out. If BA came onto the 380 order book, you can bet that Leahy would find a way to squeeze them in (eg. give FedEx a bit of an incentive to delay a few of their F-models). And then there are the airframes ordered by leasing companies (eg. ILFC) - have these been fully allocated yet? No? There ya go.