Exactly what I said Papa600 - if BA want to offer a budget service they can charge budget prices.

For short haul economy you already get one bag free. For long haul and W/C/F tickets you get more bags. Anything else is charged per piece; the price of which depends on sector length.

Max bag weight is 23kg, if above that it is a flat rate of £25 per piece regardless of sector length. Anything above 32kg is not accepted like all airlines.

You get one piece of sporting equipment free. This is above the standard baggage allowance for your cabin/sector length.

Over the past few years EI has looked pretty flakey at times too!

Does this mean no more food in Club Europe, or are we just talking Euro Trav? (i.e. wraps, cookie, or a bag of seeds if youre unlucky).

Puzzled how many people with miss it.

Come on "Its Airline FOOD".

How are the Engineers ,loaders and Dispatchers (sorry turnround managers) ever going to survive now ?

I'm sure Club Europe will continue to get a meal service; they do need to make some differentiation between Y and C tkts in terms of on board service...

Luckily no change down here, still get the club meals!

As a reasonably frequent BA user, I've no problem with this move. I do, however, have one impassioned plea to make to BA. For heaven's sake, please get rid of the god-awful seed mix offered with drinks. It is simply diabolical and half-eaten bags of the stuff can be found in every seat pocket on a BA short-haul aircraft after people have tried it, found it awful and left it in the seat-back for the next poor unsuspecting passenger. It has to go!!

The BBC report I read also said that BA were considering removing the chocolates and the Jacobs cream crackers from First Class. I can live without sandwiches. I can also live without chocolates. As for the cream crackers with my British cheese, now that's another story. I've watched the food offering in First shrink considerably over the past ten years. Even the claret is not as good as it was. So I guess BA now want me to spend my money elsewhere?

FutureCC- "My mistake, I went with BA 2 years ago to Faro and they were charging."

BA have never charged for sporting equip, even on GB flights, even 2 years ago, I dont know why you were charged?!

I was never charged, but others in my group were charged! Yes, it was GB Airways.

This however, was the Heathrow-Faro flight - which I am sure was either a Boeing 757 or Airbus A321. Something strange was that the flight was "operated by LOT" I am wondering whether this was a charter? I think I may have the boarding card somewhere...

Apologies, last time I checked I am sure BA were charging?

I don't see what the problem is. If it will save the National carrier some money during what is clearly a big financial mess for them then thats fine by me. It would be very concerning if you cannot manage 2 1/2 hours without a 'meal'.......it would explain why so many people in this country are getting so obese anyway!

At the end of the day, I know BA fares are not the cheapest but you do get many other benefits over Loco's. The fact that you have to buy a twix when you next fly LHR-GLA should not be a big issue.

I will wait now for the firey replies, I am sure this would have rattled someone's cage :rolleyes:

Not serving any food yet not offering any for sale. How is that going to work? I have to say the novelty of those chicken wraps has long worn off! A bag of goodies from pret a manager works for me every time.

I'm suprised they have cut food and not newspapers for the main cabin.

Oooppss sorry my mistake thought pax were still able to buy snacks onboard...

Interesting that the BA cuts above only refer to long-haul. It looks like some cuts are in prospect on short-haul as well. LHR-ABZ-LHR seems to be being reduced from seven to six a day with the late evening roundtrip being chopped and the LHR-ARN-LHR late roundtrip is also blocked from sale in the GDS. Couldn't find any other changes like that but didn't do an exhaustive search through every short-haul route. When were they going to advise people of those changes then?

The JFK and BOS cuts seem to be the late evening flights ex LHR and the daylight return flights into LHR, which were always the worst-performing anyway. The main surprise is that they have survived this long, particularly given that these rotations are very hungry on aircraft and crew time.

Perhaps BA should consider withdrawing the complimentary catering completely on domestic and short haul flights and instead offer a full buy on board product (excluding Club Europe).

IMO BA would have done much better retaining the BA Connect brand, this would have worked well being implemented on the UK domestic and LGW business.

Parky - sounds good but Bacon had the same overspend problems of mainline, i bet it wont be long before the light blue and yellow lot might just step in though??? :confused:

I was due to go on the last MAN-LHR of the day on October 30th (BA1407) however I got an email today saying it's cancelled and I've been rebooked on the earlier BA1405, a quick look and that flight isn't available all week so I'm guessing thats been chopped too? (The replacement flight isn't any good for me so I'm going on BD595 instead)

As one who used to do analysis of travel patterns, this can be a shortsighted economy. We found that in many cases (we mainly looked at commuter rail but some long distance stuff as well) the late/last services might not have fully commercial loads. However they were supporting the rest of the service as passengers would use the rest of the service, in the knowledge that if they were delayed or had to work late, it was there to fall back on, and periodically they would do so.

Eliminating the last trip of the day would change this perception and you could lose many more passengers than that last evening service seemed to carry. It was supporting loads on the rest of the service which were not apparent from its actual loadings. If it was taking 50 passengers and you cancelled it, you might expect the service overall to lose 100 passengers.

It is also the case that the last trip of the day takes a high proportion of business day-return traffic, which is some of the highest yielding.

You would expect BA to understand such aspects of transport economics and have people knowledgeable in these areas, but my suspicion is that the office-politics crew at Waterside, those for whom anything that cannot be expressed in one page from a spreadsheet is too difficult, have marginalised and leaned the operation by seeing those who do know one end of a plane from the other as easy targets to get rid of.

BA profits down
 

Ouch

British Airways has reported a pre-tax loss of £148m ($245m) in the three months to the end of June. This compares with a profit of £37m in the same period last year. Its operating loss of £94m compares with a profit of £35m last year.
Its losses come in the middle of a tough year for airlines as passengers cut back spending in the recession.
"Trading conditions continue to be very challenging," Willie Walsh, the airline's chief executive said.
"While traffic volumes are down considerably compared to last year, they have stabilised during the quarter and show some signs of improvement for the peak summer months," he added.
Revenues fell 12.2% to £1.983bn in the quarter.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gifhttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/...t_quote_rb.gif We're cutting forecast capital expenditure by 20% this year from £725m to £580m, and it's likely to remain at the same level this year http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/...d_quote_rb.gif


Willie Walsh, BA chief executive

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/...ashed_line.gif

Click here for BA's share price


Passenger revenue fell 12.5% while the worldwide decline for airfreight has also hit its cargo business, where revenues were down 28.1%.
Staff cuts
BA has faced possible industrial action over its efforts to cut costs and staffing numbers. The chief executive has previously said that its drive to save cash was part of a "fight for survival". In June, he asked thousands of staff to work for free for up to one month to keep the airline in business.
The airline had cut staff by 1,450 since the end of March through "reduced overtime, increased part time working and targeted voluntary redundancy", he said.
A "permanent structural change" to its employee cost base was "essential to our short-term survival and long term viability", Mr Walsh said.
The airline should meet its cost-cutting targets, he added.
"Our engineers and pilots have voted for permanent change. This is a great step forward. Talks with other union groups continue. We're cutting forecast capital expenditure by 20% this year from £725m to £580m, and it's likely to remain at the same level this year," he added.

Share price up though.