BA - Lesson 1:01: How To Seriously Upset A Group Of Premium Customers

[PAXboy]

Jarvy

I can also ask when C will be finished and will this help!

I don't know when it will be finished but I confidently predict it will make no difference. I say this because:

• They pitched expectations for T5 too high and after such a big fall, it can never be recovered in time.
• LHR has been known as chaotic for the past 30 years. It was not fixed by T4 and not by T5. No expansion through Sipson will change anything. The place is congenitally poor.
• The capacity issue was never dealt with by UK govt.
• The Loco's have ripped away capacity and much money from connections that are now more difficult. to make. So it might have eased capacity demand but it took revenue.
• Other carriers, such as Continental, have taken up the offers from the regional fields that were enlarged for the LCCs and now can support medium and slightly longer routes, where people can connect easily (USA East coast, or Middle East) so it might have eased capacity demand but it took revenue.
• Now the global recession has removed much of the demand and will continue to affect us. Since the war, we benefited from US pax who wanted to change planes in a country where they could (almost) understood and often to visit the old country. All of that is going to slide away in the continuing economic crisis. We might be out of recession but that is a purely technical measure, we are still off the runway and have the gear well ploughed in.

The airport has been caught been the conflicting demands of:

1. British Airports Authority, then BAA plc and it's various owners/managers shareholders that have changed nothing.
2. Civil Aviation Authority of all persuasions that have changed nothing. 'Light touch'? no problem but, actually, that seems to translate into heavy touch behind closed doors because of (3) ...
3. Governments of both persuasions that have never allowed clear forward planning. (Remember the whole Stansted inquiry? Will another runway be built at STN? Nope!)
4. BA has always wanted special treatment to match the special treatment it's competitors get but were not allowed it for T4 and so went full out to get it for T5 and ... screwed it up.
5. All the folks in transport and govt that took decades to get the Tube connected to the airport and even longer to get the mainline and then ensured that it was horrendously expensive.

These factors mean, I contend, that LHR lost the edge against continental Europe some 20 years ago Since then, the Middle East has opened up as well with their mega-terminals and (some) subsidised carriers. Consequently, the game is over, finished and done. Whatever happens at LHR is all avgas in the wind. The place will remain what it is. As always I repeat, this gives me no pleasure to say but I simply comment on what I have seen in the 44 years since I first paxed through the place as a boy.