I think the behind the scenes, the management of BA are trying to cut costs and manage their way out of the current problems, but there is one big problem, the unions! We all know BA cabin crew are over paid, and I also hear rumors that check in staff and call centre staff including shift pay etc are on £40K in some cases, if on old contracts!!! The only reason that BA dont offer a different product in premium economy is because the unions wont allow it!

Can you back that up with facts and audited figures Skip?

Again, a citation would be good. Not rumour.

You are joking. I've lost count of the number of rebrands since pivatisation.

When was the last time American Airlines painted their a/c a different colour?

Only in certain departments Skip. Some of us rolled over and got shafted with the rest of the private sector. Don't tar us all with the same brush.:=

No doubt Willie Walsh has a monunmental task ahead of him, however, I am confident that he will get the cost cutting onboard, excuse the pun. He had a huge challenge to complete this in Aer Lingus when it was on his knees and he did it.

I think that issue has been a one of complacency. I think that he felt that things would naturally come good and with the initial amount of redundancies he thought that would be enough.

Obviously he has a huge challenge getting costs into line, and costs that dont rely on so much Premium Passengers. However, I think that airlines flaw is that it is too reliant on London ie Heathrow, as they dont seem to have a big interest in Gatwick.

Willie needs to get costs to a level where a BHX or a MAN base would work? I think that when they threw in the towel back then was the signal that the system needed reforming.

EI-BUD

BA's shares are up 5% today with Iberia also up 10% today. It is reported that both boards are meeting today to thrash out final details of a merger, the current equity split is rumoured to be BA 55% IB 45%. Any one have any more information, my source is from the FT.

EI-BUD

Aer Lingus...the dead cat bounce personified.

BA sets the standard: in Lord King's day it was without a doubt the World's Favourite and it can be again.

The staff simply need a leader: they can deliver and will do when they are involved, not dictated to.

That is not correct. When Lord King and Colin Marshall were in charge lots of monies were made and competition was virtually nil? It was a win win situation, far removed from today!

Apparently the BA/IB merger will be complete by the end of 2010.

Iberia on strike this week, BA staff threatening to strike. A merger looks like a match made in heaven. They could have weekly strikes on an alternating basis between the Spanish and UK operations.

I still, for the life of me, can't see the attraction of this deal from BA's point of view. (I can see why the merger might be attractive to Iberia.)

I've heard the arguments from so-called "City experts" but in terms of brand image it looks to me like the Daimler-Benz/Chrysler merger. Merging with Iberia will do harm to BA's brand, without doubt.

The BA/KLM merger would have made much more sense. The plan, as I understood it, was to route low yield longhaul traffic from regional UK airports via Amsterdam, keeping Heathrow for high yield nonstop traffic.

Terminal 4 at Barajas is magnificent (much nicer than T5 at LHR, in my view) but given its geographical position doesn't offer the same connection possibilities.

Latin America? Don't make me laugh! The so-called "experts" referred to above trot out this mantra but are they serious? How big is the UK-Latin America market? Miniscule, I'd have thought.

Skipness BA did make profit in the regions when it kept Brymon and BRAL seperate, it didnt make profit once it lumped those two companies in with BAR and formed one company BACON . Now I am sure you are talking about Big BA not making a profit in the regions, my point being that there was an opportunity to make money in the regions if BA had used its subsidary companies in a better way.

Yes I agree. Once the better managed nimbler franchises became part of the legacy BA cost base, things went donwhill all the way.

Major cut-back at LGW ?
 

Apologies if this was already mentioned:
TheAirDB.com tells me that BA is cutting a lot of routes from LGW:
Malaga (AGP) , Alicante (ALC), Barcelona (BCN), Gibraltar (GIB),
Krakow (KRK), Madrid (MAD), Malta (MLA). Is this the first sign
of changes due to the merger with Iberia ?
I don't feel too affected by this sitting in BHX (Iberia doesn't honour
us with flights), but not great news for Londoners, EZY gets closer to
a monopoly. Stelios must like this.
Had a feeling of slow decline already when they tried and failed with
Dresden (DRS) and Vilnius (VNO) from LGW. I wonder if they keep
Luxembourg (LUX), another oddity in their destination list, and with
two competing airlines (Luxair and VLM/CityJet).
Just to mentioned also that I find BA's prices for TXL-LHR flights quite
low, not that much more than EZY, at times less, which is good news for
a customer, but likely bad news for the company.
Not much different for FRA-LHR.

Remember that there a number of connecting passengers on these flights as well as O&D.

Could it also be an indicator for some of the new BA routes ex LCY next year? Tendency seems to be that routes that get axed at LGW move to LCY. (NCE/PMI/IBZ/WAW IIRC)

There was talk of some more 'sunshine' routes from LCY if more slots became available via the E170/190, however I think that would be a different market all together.

I have a feeling it is something to do with IB and MAD? Anyone?:ok:

KRK, MLA and GIB are now U2 territory and aircraft are probably heading into retirement.:(

BA have already cut those flights. They cut them this winter so probably nothing to do with the merger.

re LHR-TXL

flown from London to Berlin on 16 occasions in the last year.

BA are consistently at the £145-£150 mark, LH at the £100 mark, EZY £100-£120 Mark, and FR £70 to £100 mark.

So i cant imagine BA are doing too badly on the route

Some of those have been moved to LHR, or if already served from LHR, increased in frequency

What flights do IB still operate with their own machines into LHR?

When the merger takes place, will IB machines operate from T5, considering they are just flying a brand as every plane becomes under one airline.

Or will they continue from T3?

Thanks.

I think Iberia might only operate from Barcelona and Madrid to LHR (check iberia.com) but it did transfer other flights to Clickair (now Vueling) some time ago.

I'd have thought there's no room in T5 for Iberia flights. There's never been any mention that these would move to T5 if the merger went ahead.

A problem for T5 is that it was never going to have the capacity to handle all oneworld flights.