BA launchs £25 short-haul flights

[ORAC]

BBC: British Airways to launch £25 short-haul flights

British Airways has announced plans to offer £25 one-way short-haul airfares in an attempt to challenge the no-frills budget airlines that dominate European air travel.

Business class is to be dropped from the regional operation and passengers will have to pay for meals. But restricted and non-changeable tickets will disappear, with all tickets, no matter how little they cost, being changeable. Free food and business class will still be available on domestic and short-haul routes operated by BA from Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports.

BA CitiExpress currently operates from more than a dozen UK airports, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham. Countries served include France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. BA Connect will start flying on March 26, and bookings for the new regional services can be made from February 1.

"The restructuring of the regional business will set us apart in this fiercely competitive market," David Evans, BA CitiExpress managing director, said. "We have an innovative service promise for business and short-break leisure air travellers, offering year-round, one-way prices that match the no-frills airlines and the added service promise and resources of an airline of British Airways' size and stature."

BA's regional services have been losing an estimated £30 million a year. Today's announcement means that BA is once again running a no-frills operation - something it has not done since it launched low-fare airline Go in 1998.

[I]Orac Please see above sticky. As the thread starter we need you to make a point or an argument. You can quote sources by links.
thanks
H./I]

[Taildragger67]

Link to the Beeb story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4598360.stm

[FlyboyUK]

Current thread running here :ok:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=205138

[woodpecker]

Great, that will make my ID90 £2.50............




.......... or perhaps I am dreaming!

[Manxtraveller]

But if BA have got it right, the ID90 will be of no use, the flights will all be full!

[Polarhero]

But i wonder if it will last as long as Go, :rolleyes:

In fact can anyone remeber how long it was before go had gone.

:ok:

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

But i wonder if it will last as long as Go, :rolleyes:
In fact can anyone remeber how long it was before go had gone.
:ok:

3-4 years - 1998-2001.

[DTI]

But if BA have got it right, the ID90 will be of no use, the flights will all be full!


:) Yes but cheap firm flexible fares ! Chin up.

[Captain Correlli]

Cabin crew to clean the cabins, (albeit with a slight pay rise), so maybe we'll all get a nice wrist watch to help expedite the turn rounds. Hmm, so, slashing the fares will put us into profit eh - just as long as the load factors go up.
The single biggest thing it needs (cos it's not a bad plan) is for us to recruit a manager to run the thing properly. The blockheads we have both from BA (Evans) and from BRAL (Hutchings and Co, particularly Phelan) have a proven track record of screwing up in quite spectacular fashion. I just hope Willie carries through with his plan for all managers to reapply for their jobs. Wow, the cost saving there alone would reduce our losses significantly.
Seriously, a good plan. Just needs implementing properly.......let's say I'm not putting any serious money on it!:O

[DTI]

Do BA measure revenue made from connecting City Express flights???

The word "BA Connect" would suggest that they want PAX to connect with BA mainline services. Maybe they should consider offering further fare incentives on European & inter-continental flights for "BA connect" PAX??
This would attract PAX that currently use the other LCC's.

Reducing cost's is not as difficult as people think. Catering & cleaning cost's can be drastically reduced IF flight frequency and capacity are measured and monitored. Based on this,cleaning cost's could be reduced to ad-hoc call outs when required. Catering cost can be turned into revenue depending on choice along with in-flight shopping if marketed properly. The question is are the crew who have had a pampered life until now, prepared to roll their sleeves up and make " BA Connect" work ???

Other cost's can be reduced including cabin furnishings, seat cover and carpet changing frequencies along with cabin daily consumables. The list goes on and on.

One thing they don't want to get into is the rugby scrum procedure experienced travelling on many LCC's. FR are already looking at offering assigned seating, at an additional cost.

Luggage weight charges. Always a bone of contention with everyone. Why not offer increased weight charges when booking?
Alleviating the hassle when checking in. Also add charges for over weight baggage (properly).

BA Connect. If you don't do it, somone else will !!!

Good luck BA Connect. I'm relying on you.
:ok:

[Railgun]

Luggage weight charges. Always a bone of contention with everyone. Why not offer increased weight charges when booking?
Alleviating the hassle when checking in. Also add charges for over weight baggage (properly).

BA are looking into implementing better rates on excess baggage if the pax pre pays online for any xs they might have.

[MungoP]

I for one would be very happy for BA to succeed and give us an alternative to the great con EJ..... aside from their Rottweiller approach to luggage ( not only banging on extra costs for even a couple of kilos on a half empty flight but making standard airline sized hand luggage unacceptable via there joke luggage test box...) the impossibility of telephoning to get a reservation ( except at a ludicrous telephone charge ), has anyone else out there had the experience of selecting a flight on line at a quoted price and then when selecting 'purchase' had an increased price displayed on the screen ? A sort of "ok this chump wants to go ahead...lets see how far we can push him ?"

I've flown EZ twice.... never again. For me the total cost was similar to that of a regular ticket...and the lack of decent service just wasn't worth the very small difference.

[Wycombe]

has anyone else out there had the experience of selecting a flight on line at a quoted price and then when selecting 'purchase' had an increased price displayed on the screen ?

Not with EZY, but this did happen once for me on the Flybe site.

I complained and their excuse was that this can happen when multiple people are trying to book the same flight at the same time. In this case, they didn't get my business (EZY did instead!)

To defend EZY a bit, and ensure a level playing field, I used EZY twice last year. LGW-VCE and return for myself and the wife in early May, which cost us approx £60 each, then later the same month (just before half-term when you'd expect the prices to be higher) LGW-TLS and return for the family of 4 for £132! It would have cost me that in fuel alone to drive us there and back.

If you are able to book at a time which will ensure the lowest fares, they are out there. If you want to travel tomorrow, forget it. That is the LoCo model, like it or not.

[Richae]

As a pax who uses BACX from BHX every week this doesn't seem like the smartest of moves. Now I seem to have a choice of a no-frills BA service or travelling with bmiBaby with bigger planes and lower fares but the same service level. I know who I'll be flying with after March and it ain't BA!!

[speed freek]

Richae,

Fair enough, but read the fine print. BA Connect still offers a lot more per ticket than the low-cost operators do. As for it not being a smart move, CitiExpress was not making a profit. Anything is worth a try instead of continuing the business model we had.

[Rick Binson]

Concorde001 states: I can't see Ryanir/Easyjet doing that - you only have to hear the horror stories of some passengers.

[amy_lou34]

After learning more about BA Connect, I think it may just work. They are still going to be offering a lot more than other low cost airlines...I don't know why people are so negative and always want them to fail. BA Citiexpress are the only airline in the OneWorld Alliance that doesn't charge

[Richae]

Don't get me wrong, I hope it does work but I don't think it will. I choose BA every week so that's pretty supportive. The fact is that the instructions have already come from our travel manager at work that we are not to use the higher BA Connect fares. So assuming that my employer is not unique, BA Connect is going to lose an awful lot of the revenue that it currently enjoys from business passengers. From personal choice, I'd rather be in a baby 737 than crushed into an ERJ and I reckon I'm not alone.

[speed freek]

BA Connect is going to lose an awful lot of the revenue that it currently enjoys from business passengers

They have definately done their homework on this one and it has been shown, repeatedly, that business travellers usually book fairly close to the last minute, which makes us just as competitive as the low-cost carriers, if not better. There have been times when I thought booking with FlyBE would be cheaper than us (before staff travel came in) and guess what....it wasn't. And we were still a full service airline at this point.

What about changing bookings? From the BMIBaby website: "There is a fee for each change made to a booking, and also a possible fare increase that will also need to be paid". From the BA Connect press realease: "Changes to tickets will incur a competitive £30 administration fee per transaction, with the exception of the highest level, refunable 'BA Connect Plus fare' which will be exempt from administration fees for changes". From personal experience again, I've been almost bankrupted trying to get my tickets changed with a certain low-cost carrier. Considering that most of our customers are business travellers, and the tickets are booked by the companies they work for, which 'perk' would the company's bean counters prefer?

From personal choice, I'd rather be in a baby 737 than crushed into an ERJ Fair enough, the aircraft we operate aren't the best suited anymore, however I've heard about plans for Emirates Express, an A380 with one class all the way through - about 880 people. It doesn't matter how big or small the aircraft is, your gonna get crushed into an aeroplane.

End of rant!! :}

[KLMer]

Wow is this thread and advert for BA ;)

[HZ123]

'They have definately done their homework on this one'. Thanks for the praise but clearly speed freek is not an employee of BACON or BA. Homework is not one or our better disciplines?

[speed freek]

Oh I work for them alright :E Things are changing, hopefully for the better.

[ebenezer]

Wow is this thread and advert for BA?
I agree - it certainly seems like a plug for BA. Strange how our esteemed moderators felt it necessary to issue a 'final warning' regarding the Luton thread, because someone had the temerity to make mention of a new Reims/London-Luton scheduled service due to begin in March, but the principle doesn't appear to apply to this thread which is clearly trumpeting BAW's (supposed) return to the low-cost market.

Ah well - one rule for one, and another rule for the rest.

Incidentally, before my comment is ruled inadmissible by O'Brien, having recently travelled LGW-MAN with BAW and having suffered the late arrival of the inbound aircraft due to fog and consequent slot delays, watching the 35-minute turnaround during which time the unused catering was removed, the aircraft cleaned and new catering loded, I can only observe that if BA is to make the concept work it'll need to emulate the likes of easyJet and Ryanair and aim for a 15 to 20-minute turnaround and dump the frills.

But a 20 minute turnaround at LHR?

Blimey - was that a pig flying low over central London...??

:D

[4468]

The new model will not be available at LHR, and isn't available at LGW!

[marlowe]

Yet!!!!!!!

[Richae]

Well, it seems the low frills ethos kicked in a little early. Was supposed to be winging my way home with BA this evening from EDI until the flight was cancelled. Turns out that full fare Business UK tickets entitle you to neither a seat on the next plane or anything else other than a "F*** off" when you call customer relations. Fortunately baby were there to pick up the pieces. If the service is this bad already I really don't want to find out what happens when the costs get reduced. The really sad thing is that the frontline staff at the airport were excellent as they always are. It's a shame that BA gets let down by the numpties it employs in its call centres. Sorry to say that BA Con has lost a regular before it even starts.