British Airways

[TOM100]

BA

Had an opportunity 9 years ago to sort LGW out way ahead of competition and to keep U2 out but bottled it -they just dont and never had a low cost mentality and cede gatwick to the orange brigade. A really poor strategic error in my view - could have been a la jetstar at QF

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/the-story-behind-how-gb-airways-was-sold-to-easyjet-223140/

[HZ123]

nguba;Is correct in his comments, what has not been mentioned is that many of the outstations served by 'GO', ground handling arrangements and fuel costs were met by the local BA budget, thus the 'GO' balance sheets always looked good. In addition the start up costs and many additional costs were payed by mainline BA.

[TOM100]

Go

I thought they were arms length and didn't operate ex LGW - gb were 178 on the 320 flying to high yield leisure destinations like JMK, CFU - and BA got handsome royalties for an airline with an impeccable safety record and brand new 320s and 21s only took BA 8 years to smell the coffee and now they've trashed the product - too arrogant for their own boots - madness !

[TOM100]

agree nguba but ready made airline 40+ destinations prevents u2 becoming dominant carrier interlink, earn and burn from frequent fliers vs wholesale outsourcing on ramp, 3 crew on 319's might not have been too hard a sell with Transfer of TUPE, peak Time slots, trusted partner !! I know what I would prefer.....

[nguba]

Yes, BA could have done a deal to prevent GB Airways falling into the hands of easyJet. It was quite arms length from BA. I think in its later years the below the wing handling for GB Airways was done by Virgin.

I guess in part it came at the wrong time. The LHR operation was a real mess before the move to T5 so BA had other priorities.

[TOM100]

VS did engineering all below and above wing handled by BA and at LHR

[WHBM]

Different Chief Execs, different brainwaves. Rob Ayling wanted expansion, franchise agreements, and all that. Eddington and Walsh the opposite, seemingly to impress the shareholders. The fact that a franchise operator or subsidiary was worthwhile or not was by-the-by. Walsh had already been publicly reprimanded by none other than the Prime Minister of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, for putting his and his acolytes financial rewards before the company and the national interests in a buy-out proposal at Aer Lingus.

Truth is that group airline profitability is driven more than anything by the state of the various national economies, and the price of oil. The rest is secondary, provided you have a sensible management team. At an integrated operator like BA, how you allocate head office overheads and shared revenue on connections is key to the figures shown for the constituent parts. basically you can show whatever you want for these. Do you stick BA past pension contributions onto Go, or not ? If not, BA will show worse figures if they alone have to cover it, and the knives from those bonused on the BA figures alone will be out for you at the board meeting.

[EI-A330-300]

Anyone able to help, want to book an Y ticket (no checked baggage) and when I select the outbound date, the return shows 4 of 6 returning flights as been "not available" however if I select the fare with checked baggage all return flights are available.

How does there system work, almost 300 quid not good enough (when I could of booked for under 100 had I know a week or two earlier) but want 500 instead for the exact same instead flights but with 20kg of baggage each way.

ET DUB-LAX is only 370 on the same dates return yet DUB-LHR is 500 quid, getting 300 is still a rip off but given it's last minute to be expected.

[crewmeal]

It depends when you want to travel. Easter, Summer and Christmas are the most expensive times to travel.

Examples. I want to go to Jordan over the Easter period and for a 4.3 hour journey BA are charging nearly £1000. If I go to Jordan in May the fare is half that! Aer Lingus and Ryan Air wanted around £350 to travel BHX - DUB for New Year. Any other time (apart from weekends) it's pennies.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by EI-A330-300

want to book an Y ticket (no checked baggage) and when I select the outbound date, the return shows 4 of 6 returning flights as been "not available" however if I select the fare with checked baggage all return flights are available.

It's very common for an airline to have only a proportion of the seats on a flight available at the cheapest fare and/or for fares to vary for bookings made closer to the intended date of travel. Google "yield management".

How does there system work

As described above.

Anyone able to help

Only with the advice that you've already worked out for yourself - next time, book earlier.

[WHBM]

You can also try varying the return date(s), by months. Sometimes the price differential is so much that it can be considerably cheaper to book 2 return tickets, one for your desired outward and one starting on your desired return.

And then carriers complain about no shows ...

[squeaker]

Problem is that if you are no show for the outbound leg of the later return flight, they will cancel the return leg.

[WHBM]

No, as written, you buy one return starting on your desired outwards date, and one return starting on your desired return date.

[rutankrd]

Code:

nguba;Is correct in his comments, what has not been mentioned is that many of the outstations served by 'GO', ground handling arrangements and fuel costs were met by the local BA budget, thus the 'GO' balance sheets always looked good. In addition the start up costs and many additional costs were payed by mainline BA.

And then passed on/invoiced to Go at cost/margin/admin charge -Less group discount as applicable.

Also applied to BAR services - Nothing went unbooked .

GO could have made even more margin today were "West World" have allowed them to outsource far more.

[TOM100]

Agree but BA didn't put a penny into GB, aircraft identical, market rates for BA handling (above market rates for engineering), percentage of sales royalties, lots of traffic feed, consistently high customer scores than BA themselves at Gatwick - where's the catch ? Even if timing wasn't right they could have entered agreement to do something later and they effectively ceded LGW to U2 !

Seems like some big egos may have called it strategically wrong imho - they did it with Dan Air and that was far more complex. Ho hum BA being pushed into third place on SH ex LGW by U2 and DY. Things could have been quite different for BA. Jet star manage for QF......,

[EI-A330-300]

DaveReidUK

Very few big airlines operate such a system and I travel a lot last minute and have never had a problem with KL, AF, LH. EI did block off at times but appear to have stopped that for most part.

Anyway I waited and checked again today and they opened up more low fares and the price dropped to 240.

There were never going to get the sort of fares they had on offer, I'm fully aware of yield management etc but you also need to be realistic about how much you will get per head. 240 is better than an empty seat on offer for 500 quid.

Was close to adjusting my plans and Aer Lingus who were cheaper were no use because their last flight is at 20.45 and BA 21.15, it's not a big gap but wouldn't of made it.

[Skipness One Echo]

@TOM100 Are Norwegian short haul really bigger than BA at LGW? D8 and DY combined still have less routes and freq than BA I think?

[Heathrow Harry]

"Very few big airlines operate such a system"

i think you'd be amazed TBH - and its not just airlines - bus companies, train comapnies, hotel chains... all use sytems that hark back to the old SABRE age

SABRE themselves claim currently :-

" 400 airlines, 220,000 hotels, 42 car rental brands, 38 rail providers and 17 cruise lines."

[TOM100]

Skipness I agree I just mean they are catching up quickly and with bigger a/c !

[intortola]

Has anyone flown JFK-LGW in Club World? Any noticeable difference compared to flying into LHR with the in flight service?