Customer view - (hope you Pilots dont mind)
I may not have worked in Airline management but I do understand sales and marketing and what it is like to be a customer. Putting it in simplistic terms there are two types of businesses. Firstly there is The Market Driven business which takes time to understand what the market wants to buy and secondly there is The Product Driven business that simply pushes products on the blind assumption that there are actually plenty of customers out there happy to buy their offering . It doesn’t take too much to work out which type is likely to be the more successful.
So for the last few years I have watched with interest as BA struggles to find its niche and I find it hard to understand how constant retreat, ( Harvest Heathrow) is going to be a success or how the tie up with Iberia takes into consideration the needs of the customer. Shareholders are being shown the possibility of millions of anticipated savings to be derived from the integration of business processes and routes but have either the management of Iberia or BA stopped to ask what positive impact this will have on the customer. From what I have read the so called benefit to me being regionally based in the UK is that I will only need one ticket and that my bags will be conveniently interlined as I take my three flights en route to Rio (ie Manchester – Heathrow-Madrid-Rio). In addition I will be allowed to use Iberia’s lounge in Madrid. So that’s all right then Mr Shareholder, the passengers will be nicely looked after won’t they. Of course the answer is no. BA gets to save money by integrating routes and pushing passengers through Madrid but sadly for them I, like many other customers have no intention of adding an extra stop on the journey. I accept that there is probably insufficient business to justify an airline flying direct from Manchester to Rio so I will put up with having to change flights at LHR but I am damned if I am going to take an extra layover just to provide some extra gravy to you Mr Shareholder. So which airline flies direct from Heathrow, perhaps its time to shop around and then again, why do I have to use LHR as my hub, surely Amsterdam and Paris are just as convenient from Manchester as well as arguably offering a better airport experience.
I accept that I do not have anything more than anecdotal evidence but I know plenty of people in the Northwest of England and Scotland who fly long haul and where as ten years ago most of them would be using BA the situation now is that the airlines they fly are Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, American, Continental, Delta and US Air, KLM/Air France and even Lufthansa.
Perhaps there are gains to be made by cutting routes, services and staff levels but they don’t seem to be making a positive impact on BAs bottom line. Perhaps it’s time for BA to stop pulling back on the stick and get the nose down if they are ever going to recover from the current spin!