ABBA
 

Interesting article in Sunday's Times Magazine about BA's current rush to the bottom. It seems that someone has coined the phrase "ABBA" when it comes to choosing which airline to use:

"Anything But British Airways"

Any reaction from BA Management that might start to put things right?

Good article.

The CEO would not fill you with confidence.

I wouldn't go near them to be honest. Fortunately I don't have to.

There is a section in the article in which Sr Cruz describes his vision for "two airlines" - posh people at the front and the rest behind. Where this falls down though is that it is just one plane, one set of ground crew (even if the cabin crew are split), one back office, one IT system etc so surely the over eagerness for cost cutting affects the posh people as much as the budget conscious?

" posh in an extended front and the rest in a smaller area behind" was the flawed philosophy of one Bob Ayling, amongst many others. He didn`t reign long, If I remember, Colin Marshall got rid of him..

Ditto Cruz but will WW deal with it???

BA communications are appalling!
I had a flight booked for January cancelled ( MAN-LHR)
no advice from BA!
I only found it when I was looking at their 'manage my booking' to book seats!
They had rebooked me on an earlier flight which would mean a 5+hour wait in LHR (T5 hell!)
so I tried to contact BA to change to later flight. After 20 minutes finally got somebody who told me there were plenty of seats available on the later (preferred) flight, but he would have to transfer me to somebody else to change the booking! ( the one they had changed without telling me!) I waited a further 20 minutes with no response and gave up!
Can I email them ??
I cannot find any email address to make or change bookings and the web site wont let me change it it says I have to call them.
When I call them..... its ALWAYS an interminable wait
They are disgrace!
BA.. get your act together!!

Time for BA to send out an S.O.S.?

It`s Money, Money, Money

Exactly as I posted last week in the British airways section ,sleepwalking to the bottom.,the present staff deserve better than the current cock ups A once proud BA pilot

That phrase has been banded about for years. As has the national sport of knocking BA.

The airline has had a bad year but it will pull through it just as it has got through rough patches in the past.

And if you compare its fleet, networks and operations at all of LHR, LGW and LCY to ten years ago, there's been a lot of progress on many fronts. And the same can't be said for a long list of airlines: bmi, Virgin Atlantic, CityJet, Flybe...

Can you hear drums fernando.

One of the worst J classes in the sky. BA's strength imo was always it's staff, helpful, friendly and competent. With morale the way it seems to be going, I wonder how long that will last.

Finally facing their Waterloo

'I have a dream' says Alex Cruz. 'Knowing me, knowing you', no chance...

Luckily the cabin crew are super troupers and if they take a chance they might find the winner takes it all

Yippee doing better than one you bought and shut, one a competitor on some routes, like seriously a competitor and one you partially own as you offloaded routes to them.

However your competition is Ryanair, Easyjet, Norwegian, Emirates etc etc and you not competing.

It's all rather quite embarrasing, I'll not be taking a chance on BA again any time soon unless I have to.

I really get the sense it's all slipping through their fingers

When I saw the title of the thread I thought it might be about the SAS version of "Joon" :} (and for the over 40's hahaha :p)

I believe Alex is completely deluded. An airline has to decide on service level and price point. The brand cannot stand for service at one end of the aircraft and price at the other, the passengers at one end and perhaps both ends of the aircraft are going to be disappointed.

Positive news on all fronts with the launch of a new 'duvet' cover (club and first).

That's' sorted that then!

Are BA that bad? In my opinion no. I still continue to fly BA, largely because in J and F their fares are reasonable compared to EK and EY. I have a flight with KL back to DXB at the weekend, again in J and half the price of EK, including the limo and a miniature Amsterdam house complete with gin. Have not flown KLM for 15 years due to crap service, so we will see.

I agree that Alex is destroying the BA brand, however that was inevitable when BA tied the knot with IB, who are woeful in my opinion. I'm waiting for BA to substitute the champers for cava, now that would be low

"They're so dear, the buns, Fernando"
But seriously, having to wield a credit card just to get a cup of coffee on my last flight with them in April to/from Oslo just got my back up. Slow and irksome. Didn't bother.

AO... cava for the charvas?

PM

They’re also pretty profitable......

The one aircraft / two airlines strategy is an interesting one. I’ll reserve judgement, but in principle I see no reason why it couldn’t work. I’m interested to know which direction the Premium Economy cabin will go, though, because it seems to me this is a growing market and their current product is rubbish.

I have to disagree. While there are still some excellent and enthusiastic CC at BA, far too many have an ‘am I bovvered’ attitude that has existed for a long time and certainly pre-dates Alex Cruz.

People use the same supermarket for their standard and luxury ranges. Only the toffs stick solely to Waitrose!

I'm certainly not a regular flyer - I fly only for leisure- but after a BA trip to Heraklion I received an email from BA seeking feedback. Amongst other things, I was asked to list the airlines I had flown with in the past 12 months, and then which had provided the best overall service. Much as it went against the grain with a choice of 4, I had to answer Ryanair!

At one time I was prepared to pays slightly over the odds to fly BA, in the knowledge that I was treated as a human being, had a little more legroom, and had a free drink and snack thrown in. Sadly, that's no longer the case.

Others have got better and BA hasn't, there was a gap which could justify price for those prepared to pay it, now it isn't there.

My last but one flight with BA was supposed to be LUX/LGW.

They phoned me the day before to inform flight cancelled due technical, I used to do this for a living, I told them it was bull and give me an hour and I'll find you an aircraft to sub-charter in, invol rerouted me LUX/LHR on Luxair who totally trashed my suitcase and had no UK representation, left to National Express it to LGW around the M25, ticketed with BA I tried to claim for my suitcase, they weren't having any of it telling me to contact Luxair who I couldn't, and in the end I was forced to give up.

I gave them one more chance after that, AMS/LGW they seated me in a broken seat whilst we flew a very lumpy lefg with the gear down because the idiots had overfuelled the damn thing.

Agree that KLM are cr@p, that's two cr@p airlines now :)

Not sure if it really was a fair reflection of BA but the TV series, "A Very British Airline" made interesting viewing and reflection of their attitude and approach. There was lots of snobbery and pretentiousness during the CC training episode regarding why people would want to choose BA over other airlines. To me they showed the company was clearly living in the past and in denial that the public make their decisions nowadays based on cost and convenience, not the fact that the staff know what wine goes with Lobster Thermidor. BA seemed to still be trying to cultivate an image of exclusivity which is today, irrelevant and pandering to an ever shrinking clientele.

Had Maggie not had a word in the shell-like of Ronnie as Sir Freddie was "suing the b@stards" thru the US Grand Jury we wouldn't have a BA to concern ourselves with these days!