Wise words at last! Thanks for restoring order, WWW& Scroggs.
Well, IMHO BA isn't in as much trouble as it may seem. The short haul product is still different to that offered by *any* other UK airline, if possibly not to that offered by some continental carriers.
No matter whether BA's claim of superior customer service is true (I do think it is), there is a group of customers who will never fly the likes of Easyjet, Ryanair and Go; who will continue to fly BA. It's the same group of people who started complaining about taking the union jack of the tail planes, and the same group of people who have always flown BA. This may or may not be an "emotional" decision, but nonetheless the BA brand is about a million times stronger than that of *any* no-frills carrier - even if Stelios sticks fancy ads in the tube.
Now this powerbase of loyal customers may not amount to much in terms of passenger load. But, in reality, it's not just the brand and image that's different - it's BA's short haul product itself. Yes, it costs more to fly BA - but you can move on your seat and get some food as well. It also offers the unique advantage of taking people where they want to go. The no-frills market depends, as it happens, on taking people to and from no-frills airports - with cumbersome connections and hours of wasted time.
My point is that although no-frills is taking passengers off BA (and this has hit the company's bottom line), there is no reason why an appropriate short-haul product should not be profitable. But it's the "appropriate" that counts. Hence this may or may not involve some serious restructuring of the operation, but the mere fact that there is a passenger segment that is (1) willing to pay more for decent service (2) wanting to travel between the big airports means that there will always be business for a superior BA short haul.
Already the company has started to focus more on the profitable customer segments, and we know what that is - the premium passengers. I genuinely believe that this can be exploited even on short haul, and the no-frills carriers, by their very nature, are in no position to compete with BA here. The only real competitors are the other European flag carriers.
But while these things were already at the forefront of BA's mind *before* 9/11, the added "inconveniences" now make the whole thing a little more difficult...ahhh! Well I hope the CEP scheme will resume soon. But I'm just sick of 'experts' making their supposedly accurate predictions of when this will happen.
WWW, IMHO *any* airline that focuses on one segment too much is in danger - no matter if this is in terms of routes (Virgin - atlantic) or customers (easyjet - no frills) as soon as passenger loads in that segment drop. BA, by contrast, is very versatile and has therefore not been hit as badly as some others. What will happen if some occurrence just wipes out the no-frills market tomorrow? Having nothing to rely on, those carriers would just get wiped out, especially where there are no real assets and the planes are leased. This is why Virgin has been hit so badly, even though they're not a no-frills carrier: simply because they've been exposed to that one particular market segment. Nonetheless I do agree with Scroggs and think 2 years would be an absolute worse-case scenario. We'll see it through....
[ 11 October 2001: Message edited by: Capt Rommel ]