British Airways
Always beena loyal BA customer for various reasons and for the logical one that is till have alot of airmiles accrued during my career. But having had the opportunity to compare BA and EZ with flights a couple of months apart I cannot see any reason to choose BA ove Ez especially as Ez 'Up front ' product is musch the same as BA Club europe except for the food .
However there are two reasons which apply to me and I suspect a lot of others which will help keep BA afloat .
1 Exec Club-- Lots of business travellers like this because it gives them a chance to take partner or family at free of subsidised cost to make up for all the time away from home. The other side of the coin applies to me which is that three years after retiring Is till have 500K avios to use up.
2 LHR, LHR sits at the centre of probably the most prosperous area of UK -West end of London and suburbs like Richmond , Wimbledon etc and then the area between the M3 and M40 , which has many high disposable income towns . For many people in those areas Gatwick or Luton, let alone STN are just too diffilcult to get too and much more expensive in terms of a cab ride.
For me LHR especially T5 is about 20 miles away, with multiple road routes not just the M3 and M25, but LGW is over 50 miles away much of that on the M25
So while BAs standards have dropped alarmingly under Cruz and will continue to do so while he is there since he knows only one way to manage-cut costs., Avios and access make BA a good choice for lots and lots of people even isf they might be 50-100 more per ticket.
Just extending this abit further I wonder how the choice of airline for people in London and its envrins , say up to 40 miles radius is really dictated by where you live when it comes to European travel . I have sketched out the area where LHR is easily to best choice and surely this is true for the others. Live in Brighton why go to LHR , Essex and Suffolk why choose anywhere than STN etc .talking to people on a recent holiday many had chosen Ezy over BA simply because Luton was so much more accessible than LHR if you live in say Bedford or N Herts
However there are two reasons which apply to me and I suspect a lot of others which will help keep BA afloat .
1 Exec Club-- Lots of business travellers like this because it gives them a chance to take partner or family at free of subsidised cost to make up for all the time away from home. The other side of the coin applies to me which is that three years after retiring Is till have 500K avios to use up.
2 LHR, LHR sits at the centre of probably the most prosperous area of UK -West end of London and suburbs like Richmond , Wimbledon etc and then the area between the M3 and M40 , which has many high disposable income towns . For many people in those areas Gatwick or Luton, let alone STN are just too diffilcult to get too and much more expensive in terms of a cab ride.
For me LHR especially T5 is about 20 miles away, with multiple road routes not just the M3 and M25, but LGW is over 50 miles away much of that on the M25
So while BAs standards have dropped alarmingly under Cruz and will continue to do so while he is there since he knows only one way to manage-cut costs., Avios and access make BA a good choice for lots and lots of people even isf they might be 50-100 more per ticket.
Just extending this abit further I wonder how the choice of airline for people in London and its envrins , say up to 40 miles radius is really dictated by where you live when it comes to European travel . I have sketched out the area where LHR is easily to best choice and surely this is true for the others. Live in Brighton why go to LHR , Essex and Suffolk why choose anywhere than STN etc .talking to people on a recent holiday many had chosen Ezy over BA simply because Luton was so much more accessible than LHR if you live in say Bedford or N Herts
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Agree pax b - Have used BA many times long haul in economy for holidays simply because they do non-stop to the booked destination. The service has generally been good so can't complain. I'd rather spend the extra on upgrading the holiday accommodation than upgrading cabin on the flight.
Their long haul business product which I've used is fine with the added bonus of Exec Club benefits.
Planning to do short haul domestic for business in the Autumn and Gatwick with EZY is the obvious choice with it being my nearest airport but the timings from Gatwick are not business friendly so BA from Heathrow it's likely to be with much increased frequency with timings suiting my needs.
Their long haul business product which I've used is fine with the added bonus of Exec Club benefits.
Planning to do short haul domestic for business in the Autumn and Gatwick with EZY is the obvious choice with it being my nearest airport but the timings from Gatwick are not business friendly so BA from Heathrow it's likely to be with much increased frequency with timings suiting my needs.
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More recent cutbacks put Y with BA beyond the Pale. Second meal on a LHR-YUL on a painfully cramped new B787-8 was a two finger Kit Kat. They've cut too far, Cruz-Control's idea of a Norwegian competitor in Y is not what I am looking for.
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Pretty sure Norwegian offer small sandwich + chocolate bar or similar as a second meal on long haul if you have meals booked, so BA have already dropped below their competition! No issue with legroom on Norwegian's 787's either from my experience, quite a reasonable seat pitch.
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Pretty sure Norwegian offer small sandwich + chocolate bar or similar as a second meal on long haul if you have meals booked, so BA have already dropped below their competition! No issue with legroom on Norwegian's 787's either from my experience, quite a reasonable seat pitch.
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These cabins are carrying profitable loads so nothings going to change anytime soon.
I recently flew BA in Y short haul but decided to fly back with EZY to compare (Having never used either). Apart from a £100+ difference in price there was little difference save getting to fly out of swanky T5 with BA.
Oh no, I did get a free copy of the Telegraph with BA... £100 well spent!
Oh no, I did get a free copy of the Telegraph with BA... £100 well spent!
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You'll get a meal and a breakfast on the Santiago route. Nothing in the between services as it's a night flight, so that will be about 9 hours of no food! So bring something to eat incase you do get peckish in between meals.
Did anyone see the WW interview on BBC Breakfast? Another missed opportunity by Sean Farrington to ask WW questions on BA's £900m profeit. Instead of asking where they are in the top 10, the IT cockup and pregnancy tests for Iberia staff why couldn't he have asked questions as to why he is turning the airline into a low cost carrier, cutting back on service, what he's doing about the ongoing cabin crew problems?
BBC Breakfast and some of their presenters are so amateurish these days.
BBC Breakfast and some of their presenters are so amateurish these days.
Did anyone see the WW interview on BBC Breakfast? Another missed opportunity by Sean Farrington to ask WW questions on BA's £900m profeit. Instead of asking where they are in the top 10, the IT cockup and pregnancy tests for Iberia staff why couldn't he have asked questions as to why he is turning the airline into a low cost carrier, cutting back on service, what he's doing about the ongoing cabin crew problems?
BBC Breakfast and some of their presenters are so amateurish these days.
BBC Breakfast and some of their presenters are so amateurish these days.
Welcome to 21st century air travel!
With regard to you last comment, couldn't agree more, but could have been worse, Steph McGovern could have been conducting the interview!!
IAG, and by extension BA, are a business. They exist to create value for their shareholders. If they’re making bucketloads of cash then they’re doing something right.
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Start losing passengers and the cash will follow.
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The IT failure at British Airways in May that left thousands unable to check in baggage cost it 65m euros (£58m), the airline's owner, IAG, has said.
About 75,000 passengers faced severe disruption when BA's system failed over the second Bank Holiday weekend in May. BA said it was caused by an engineer who disconnected a power supply.
Despite the extra cost, IAG still managed to report a 13.8% increase in half-year operating profits to 898m euros (£804m). Operating profits at British Airways rose to 741m euros from 631m euros a year earlier. IAG, which also owns Aer Lingus, Iberia and Vueling, said it expected operating profit for the whole of 2017 to show a double-digit percentage improvement.
Revenue per passenger was up 1.5%, the first rise since 2014.
'Isolated event'
The cause of May's power cut has not been fully explained. The company has asked an independent company to investigate.
IAG chief executive Willie Walsh defended the company's effort to compensate passengers for the disruption caused by the IT failure.
"We are doing everything we can to make good the disruption that the customers experienced, but it was an isolated event and I think you've got to focus on the fact that BA's passenger numbers continue to increase," he told the BBC's Today programme.
"BA's underlying performance is actually very good, as are the performances of the other airlines within the group, so this is a very strong set of results and reflects a focus that IAG has on providing customer service at prices that customers are willing to pay."
Price war
Earlier this week Ryanair said that fares could fall by as much as 9% this summer, as competition among budget carriers grows.
But with its focus on longer-haul routes, IAG has some insulation from those falling fares.
"At the budget end of the market, capacity is expanding. As more planes take to the sky, short haul airlines are having to cut prices to keep them full. With its long haul focus that's not a problem for IAG," said Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown.
"The result is that while rivals are seeing the gains from lower fuel prices frittered away in an aggressive price war, at IAG they're dropping through to the bottom line and profits are taking off," Mr Hyett said.
Employee costs were down 3.9% across the group as a whole, thanks to what the company called productivity and efficiency improvements.
BA has been affected by a series of strikes by mixed-fleet cabin crew, who are paid less and employed on different terms to those of longer-standing staff.
Mr Walsh said Level - its new long-haul, low-cost airline which is based in Barcelona - was proving a success and the group planned to expand the operation.
About 75,000 passengers faced severe disruption when BA's system failed over the second Bank Holiday weekend in May. BA said it was caused by an engineer who disconnected a power supply.
Despite the extra cost, IAG still managed to report a 13.8% increase in half-year operating profits to 898m euros (£804m). Operating profits at British Airways rose to 741m euros from 631m euros a year earlier. IAG, which also owns Aer Lingus, Iberia and Vueling, said it expected operating profit for the whole of 2017 to show a double-digit percentage improvement.
Revenue per passenger was up 1.5%, the first rise since 2014.
'Isolated event'
The cause of May's power cut has not been fully explained. The company has asked an independent company to investigate.
IAG chief executive Willie Walsh defended the company's effort to compensate passengers for the disruption caused by the IT failure.
"We are doing everything we can to make good the disruption that the customers experienced, but it was an isolated event and I think you've got to focus on the fact that BA's passenger numbers continue to increase," he told the BBC's Today programme.
"BA's underlying performance is actually very good, as are the performances of the other airlines within the group, so this is a very strong set of results and reflects a focus that IAG has on providing customer service at prices that customers are willing to pay."
Price war
Earlier this week Ryanair said that fares could fall by as much as 9% this summer, as competition among budget carriers grows.
But with its focus on longer-haul routes, IAG has some insulation from those falling fares.
"At the budget end of the market, capacity is expanding. As more planes take to the sky, short haul airlines are having to cut prices to keep them full. With its long haul focus that's not a problem for IAG," said Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown.
"The result is that while rivals are seeing the gains from lower fuel prices frittered away in an aggressive price war, at IAG they're dropping through to the bottom line and profits are taking off," Mr Hyett said.
Employee costs were down 3.9% across the group as a whole, thanks to what the company called productivity and efficiency improvements.
BA has been affected by a series of strikes by mixed-fleet cabin crew, who are paid less and employed on different terms to those of longer-standing staff.
Mr Walsh said Level - its new long-haul, low-cost airline which is based in Barcelona - was proving a success and the group planned to expand the operation.
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The real test for IAG and BA's strategy is the next big industry downturn.
After 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, BA was in a considerable position of weakness. Post 9/11 was essentially a "lost decade" for the airline in terms of no investment in new aircraft and progressively shrinking route network and passenger numbers (from ~40m to ~30m pa).
That has now largely been reversed with passenger numbers up at record levels and a large number of formerly suspended routes reinstated (Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Inverness, Belfast etc).
If IAG is in a position of relative strength in the next industry crisis then everything WW has said about the need for airlines to cover their cost of capital across the cycle will have been vindicated.
It's also a bit unfair to say that WW/AC don't care about customer service. IAG do monitor the NPS scores across all the group's airlines. But it's very obvious that in the case of short-haul they really see punctuality as the driver of customer satisfaction, not complimentary food.
After 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, BA was in a considerable position of weakness. Post 9/11 was essentially a "lost decade" for the airline in terms of no investment in new aircraft and progressively shrinking route network and passenger numbers (from ~40m to ~30m pa).
That has now largely been reversed with passenger numbers up at record levels and a large number of formerly suspended routes reinstated (Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Inverness, Belfast etc).
If IAG is in a position of relative strength in the next industry crisis then everything WW has said about the need for airlines to cover their cost of capital across the cycle will have been vindicated.
It's also a bit unfair to say that WW/AC don't care about customer service. IAG do monitor the NPS scores across all the group's airlines. But it's very obvious that in the case of short-haul they really see punctuality as the driver of customer satisfaction, not complimentary food.
Last edited by nguba; 30th Jul 2017 at 10:22.
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My cousin who lives in Australia went business class on BA from LHR to VVR return recently. She was appalled how standards had slipped since her previous trip, she said the lounge was too small, the food provided in the lounge was poor and all the passengers were made to queue before boarding at LHR. On return the 380 could not go to the dock and had to be de-planed with stairs. She said that Qantas are far better, I felt embarrassed that our national carrier has sunk so low.