BA considering going LOCO at Gatwick.
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tilly666
Apologies then LGW must be unique..but picture an early ???-??? flight booked to 80 pax. Cabin crew compliment drops from 4 to 3 cabin crew due late sickness and 80 hot breakfast get chucked away as the CSD refuses to do any cabin service at all.....not even tea or coffee as they only have 3 cabin crew and the pax services manager at ??? is furious due to high number of club pax.!!!
Just picture it....'ladies and gentleman, we apologies for the lack of cabin service this morning, due to the fact WE CAN'T BE ARSED!'
No......'oh we'll try and do the best we can'....... nothing at all!!
Absolutely bloody ludicrous.........What happened to working in the aviation industry because you want to. There are too many people working for the 'flag carrier' that make an art out of doing nothing for something...and get away with it.
SN Brussels operate their similar a/c type with 2 and I bet there are no complaints...
IN TRIM
I was referring to the Rod Eddington's bit about short haul overheads still being too high. It's obviously not working if that's the case. BA have never been able to run regional services. One reason is that they keep absorbing regional airlines with management that have great visions of being part of big BA but don't have the experience, also BA used to employ graduates into high profile positions that stiffled the promotion prospects for everyone else that 'knew' how to run an airline and filled the top positions with people that didn't have a clue and with over inflated salaries???
You can't run regional and european services on long-haul ideals. They must be completely seperated for it to work.
My understanding of the cabin services director or CSD is that they get paid alot of money for doing very little, which is great for longhaul but no use to anyone for a 50 minute sector......what's the point...?
Apologies then LGW must be unique..but picture an early ???-??? flight booked to 80 pax. Cabin crew compliment drops from 4 to 3 cabin crew due late sickness and 80 hot breakfast get chucked away as the CSD refuses to do any cabin service at all.....not even tea or coffee as they only have 3 cabin crew and the pax services manager at ??? is furious due to high number of club pax.!!!
Just picture it....'ladies and gentleman, we apologies for the lack of cabin service this morning, due to the fact WE CAN'T BE ARSED!'
No......'oh we'll try and do the best we can'....... nothing at all!!
Absolutely bloody ludicrous.........What happened to working in the aviation industry because you want to. There are too many people working for the 'flag carrier' that make an art out of doing nothing for something...and get away with it.
SN Brussels operate their similar a/c type with 2 and I bet there are no complaints...
IN TRIM
I was referring to the Rod Eddington's bit about short haul overheads still being too high. It's obviously not working if that's the case. BA have never been able to run regional services. One reason is that they keep absorbing regional airlines with management that have great visions of being part of big BA but don't have the experience, also BA used to employ graduates into high profile positions that stiffled the promotion prospects for everyone else that 'knew' how to run an airline and filled the top positions with people that didn't have a clue and with over inflated salaries???
You can't run regional and european services on long-haul ideals. They must be completely seperated for it to work.
My understanding of the cabin services director or CSD is that they get paid alot of money for doing very little, which is great for longhaul but no use to anyone for a 50 minute sector......what's the point...?
Last edited by Dash-7 lover; 9th Feb 2005 at 18:48.
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Tilly,
On the contrary.....BA absorb these companies with good focussed management for the particular markets.........but it's not that the managers don't have the experience, it is simply that they are not given the opportunity. This is often due to politics and a refusal amongst the incumbent BA staff to accept that these managers do actually know their stuff!!
BA have allowed a lot of incredibly good managers to go, or even paid them off (....to go and work the competition!!) rather than face the internal unrest which would result by allowing those people an effective role within the organisation.
One reason is that they keep absorbing regional airlines with management that have great visions of being part of big BA but don't have the experience
BA have allowed a lot of incredibly good managers to go, or even paid them off (....to go and work the competition!!) rather than face the internal unrest which would result by allowing those people an effective role within the organisation.
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In Trim - couldn't agree with you more! BA have had a number of opportunities - some utterly 'golden' to sort out LGW SH. There's been a complete inability to grab said bull by the horns demonstrated several times and now, frankly, it may just be too late.
Look at EZY at LGW - soon to be 16 x 156 seat very new & shiny A319s based operating 56 flights per day with load factors of around 80% + on 29 different routes. And you can be sure they're not stopping there! All that in around 3.5 years...! That's pretty much the presence/frequency that CityFlyer used to be when they were at their highly successful peak back in 2001. Sure 9/11 would have hit CFE badly too, but they had the cost base, flexibility and frankly the 'gumption' to cope far better than BA/EoG.
With the opening of T5 at LHR looming and, therein, the opportunity for BA to centralise its operations there, is the writing really on the wall for BA at LGW (certainly in terms of SH) or will BA do with GB what they were going to do with CFE a number of years ago - i.e. transfer LGW SH ops to them. Surely GB is their last real chance of making this work at LGW - another astute franchise making the best of the BA brand that's available to them?
Methinks a bit of 'rock & hard place' going on here for BA in terms of the future at LGW vs pull out of LGW given the intense and unrelenting competition right on its doorstep in the LON region - market share - however unprofitable - that they can ill afford to lose?
In the meanwhile, the customer has never had it so good at LGW fares-wise - but is it sustainable.....?
It will be very interesting to watch how this develops - always, for my part (and having been there more than once) being mindful that real people and their lives & futures, depend on those big decisions.
TA
Look at EZY at LGW - soon to be 16 x 156 seat very new & shiny A319s based operating 56 flights per day with load factors of around 80% + on 29 different routes. And you can be sure they're not stopping there! All that in around 3.5 years...! That's pretty much the presence/frequency that CityFlyer used to be when they were at their highly successful peak back in 2001. Sure 9/11 would have hit CFE badly too, but they had the cost base, flexibility and frankly the 'gumption' to cope far better than BA/EoG.
With the opening of T5 at LHR looming and, therein, the opportunity for BA to centralise its operations there, is the writing really on the wall for BA at LGW (certainly in terms of SH) or will BA do with GB what they were going to do with CFE a number of years ago - i.e. transfer LGW SH ops to them. Surely GB is their last real chance of making this work at LGW - another astute franchise making the best of the BA brand that's available to them?
Methinks a bit of 'rock & hard place' going on here for BA in terms of the future at LGW vs pull out of LGW given the intense and unrelenting competition right on its doorstep in the LON region - market share - however unprofitable - that they can ill afford to lose?
In the meanwhile, the customer has never had it so good at LGW fares-wise - but is it sustainable.....?
It will be very interesting to watch how this develops - always, for my part (and having been there more than once) being mindful that real people and their lives & futures, depend on those big decisions.
TA
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Lets be honest, BA should never have sold off Go Airline. It was a very bad decision by Rod Eddington to do so a the time.
Just think if Go had been around today, BA LOCO (Go Airline) would have probably been the largest operator at Stansted, if not second after Ryanair.
They would have also dominated Bristol's operations since they could have done what bmi did and transferred all of its BA CitiExpress services to BA LOCO (Go Airline). Then they could have kept their mainstream business services such as Munich and Frankfurt as BA CitiExpress... Then hopefully no other airline would want to have started ops at Brsitol due to the competition.
BA could have also been a big operator at Nottingham East Midlands under LOCO (Go Airline) and competed head-to-head with bmibaby. Go could have actually had about 6 or 7 aircraft based there now if hadn't been Easyjet prioritising London, Bristol, Newcastle and European operations.
Basically, BA LOCO (Go Airline) could have dominated the low-cost British market with its hands on major UK airports. If BA LOCO (Go Airline) had gone into Gatwick, Easyjet may have never started ops from their.
The other fantastic thing about Go was that it was the best low-cost airline I had ever flown on because of their crew professionalism, smart uniforms andexcellent in-flight service. BA could have kept Barbara Cassani who in my mind was a fantastic Chief Executive.
Since BA sold off Go Airline, they have just allowed Easyjet to literally triple in size and compete directly with BA at Gatwick. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol and still have a knock-on effect on its short-haul routes at Heathrow, Cardiff and Newcastle. Just think if Go Airline had been around today then Easyjet would still be a tiny airline only operating out of Luton, Liverpool and Europe!
So from that stupid decison to sell of BA LOCO (Go Airline) I have never rated Rod Edddington as a good Chief Executive of BA. Though he has brought profitability back to the airline, BA is seriously struggling on its short-haul routes.
Just think if Go had been around today, BA LOCO (Go Airline) would have probably been the largest operator at Stansted, if not second after Ryanair.
They would have also dominated Bristol's operations since they could have done what bmi did and transferred all of its BA CitiExpress services to BA LOCO (Go Airline). Then they could have kept their mainstream business services such as Munich and Frankfurt as BA CitiExpress... Then hopefully no other airline would want to have started ops at Brsitol due to the competition.
BA could have also been a big operator at Nottingham East Midlands under LOCO (Go Airline) and competed head-to-head with bmibaby. Go could have actually had about 6 or 7 aircraft based there now if hadn't been Easyjet prioritising London, Bristol, Newcastle and European operations.
Basically, BA LOCO (Go Airline) could have dominated the low-cost British market with its hands on major UK airports. If BA LOCO (Go Airline) had gone into Gatwick, Easyjet may have never started ops from their.
The other fantastic thing about Go was that it was the best low-cost airline I had ever flown on because of their crew professionalism, smart uniforms andexcellent in-flight service. BA could have kept Barbara Cassani who in my mind was a fantastic Chief Executive.
Since BA sold off Go Airline, they have just allowed Easyjet to literally triple in size and compete directly with BA at Gatwick. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol and still have a knock-on effect on its short-haul routes at Heathrow, Cardiff and Newcastle. Just think if Go Airline had been around today then Easyjet would still be a tiny airline only operating out of Luton, Liverpool and Europe!
So from that stupid decison to sell of BA LOCO (Go Airline) I have never rated Rod Edddington as a good Chief Executive of BA. Though he has brought profitability back to the airline, BA is seriously struggling on its short-haul routes.
I just can't believe these people!
First of all, when the cheaplines began to bite, they decided to have their own (no doubt craftily subsidised). It worked! Yawoozoosh!
So - they sold it - to the biggest low-cost competitor!
To deal with the still-increasing low-cost competition, they then slashed fares on short-haul routes.
It worked (up to a point).
Now they want to "go low-cost" again! Never mind, it's not as if it was real money...for mine, I'd have folded the whole European network into Go and kept it. Three boxes - BA mainline with all the routes outside western Europe, Go with all the western Europe routes, BACX with the domestic routes. Oh, and bulldoze Waterside.
It wouldn't have been such a bad idea to put Barbara C. in charge of the whole company - if she could have been spared from the Go/Euro business.
First of all, when the cheaplines began to bite, they decided to have their own (no doubt craftily subsidised). It worked! Yawoozoosh!
So - they sold it - to the biggest low-cost competitor!
To deal with the still-increasing low-cost competition, they then slashed fares on short-haul routes.
It worked (up to a point).
Now they want to "go low-cost" again! Never mind, it's not as if it was real money...for mine, I'd have folded the whole European network into Go and kept it. Three boxes - BA mainline with all the routes outside western Europe, Go with all the western Europe routes, BACX with the domestic routes. Oh, and bulldoze Waterside.
It wouldn't have been such a bad idea to put Barbara C. in charge of the whole company - if she could have been spared from the Go/Euro business.
