Is this the best way forward BA?

[crewmeal]

Seems BA are reconfiguring their Airbus fleet with the result of less legroom for the Business Class traveller. I'm not altogether convinced that this is a good move and may result in Easyjet benefiting from this.

British Airways Confirms Shorthaul Airbus Reconfigurations. | The BA Source

[easyflyer83]

I don't see die hard BA club pax jumping ship to easyjet.

[ExXB]

Do the new seats recline? I personally hope not.

[mixture]

Shorthaul business on any airline is a waste of time and money.

Only reason I ever fly BA short haul business is when I find myself on feeder routes onto long haul business tickets. I'd never just buy a simple short haul business return.

[cjhants]

I flew to FCO and back earlier this month. Walking through club, I was surprised at the lack of leg room. The only benefit I could see on board was the blocked off centre seat and better drinks and food.
I paid £10 eatra each way for an exit row seat and this seemed to offer much more leg room than club. For a 2 hour flight dont see the point of paying all that extra.

[INeedTheFull90]

It's a very competitive market and they're repositioning themselves closer to their main rival on short haul a easyJet. With stealth baggage charges, being crammed in and very basic catering (with no choice and no option to purchase more if one gets hungry), their product is getting closer toward an LCC. Apart from those connecting or with FF cards, BA short haul are facing very stiff competition and some LCCs have a strong following so this will allow BA to remain competitive in the market as competition increases. They're adapting to the market and if they're cramming more seats on then god for them and I hope it works out for them. Flew them short haul a few months back and although the service wasn't fantastic, I felt they provided great value for money but no more so than easyJet or Norwegian.

[Gibon2]

It's a very competitive market and they're repositioning themselves closer to their main rival on short haul a easyJet.

The trouble with this strategy (if it is indeed BA's strategy) is that easyJet is much better at being easyJet than BA can hope to be. Swiss tried a similar manoeuvre in its early days, and it was a miserable failure. By trimming frills, BA will alienate its "die hard club pax", but will not attract easyJet pax unless it can consistently undercut on price and match the keep-it-simple efficiency and service.

[mixture]

no option to purchase more if one gets hungry

You mean there is actually someone in the world who wants the option to purchase MORE airline food ?!?

[INeedTheFull90]

I like the have the option. Sorry but LGW-PFO is too long for me to go on a little panini and packet of bird seed. Besides I think some of the food offerings by LCCs are pretty good - easyJet's ham and cheese melt Ryanair's breakfast biscuit and the tapas on Norwegian are pretty good. FR even do chips - what more could you want?

[Metro man]

It looks like they may be going down market like Aer Lingus, to try and compete with the low cost airlines. Few people can justify paying a multiple of the economy fare on a short flight. I took an upgrade offer of BAs on a LHR - ZRH once and was happy enough but would not have paid full price.

I can see the good Club Class confined to a few premium routes which can justify it. Perhaps they should just call it Premium Economy instead.

[INeedTheFull90]

I think the EI route could work out nicely for them to be honest. Give the premiums their seats up front, "2X2" seating, their drinks and snacks included in the price and their avios points. Give the rest of us the option of choosing what we use and what we pay for.

[Heathrow Harry]

Yeah +£800 for a return LHR MAD for a flexible "business class" ticket recently was an eyeopener - it really wasn't worth it

[Hotel Tango]

Business Class fares on short to medium European routes have always been excessive for the product offered. With many businesses tightening their belts these days not many fork out for Business fares. Two short European routes I fly regularly with two different airlines both offer Business Class. 98% of the time that end of the cabin is empty. In many other cases it will be pax feeding onto LH Business Class. Very very few fly Business Class point-to-point on SH European flights.

[ExXB]

But, if you're connecting off of a long haul overnight flight from nowhere, you do want a little TLC on that short connecting flight home. If you look after them on short haul, they will come back for their long haul where the real money is at. You don't? Well there lots of other connecting services and even some nonstop flights too.

[PAXboy]

There is no way of telling if this is the 'right way forward for BA'. In one year's time, they will have some idea but it will be five years before they will really know. Not that they will wait that long before telling the shareholders that it's a success. Pardon the cynicism but I was in corporateland for 25 years.

I have a great deal of sympathy with BA. They are towards the end of their natural lifespan and have to try anything and everything. We have discussed this topic in here before. The number of large corporates that survive beyound 100 years are few. Again (as before) I take no delight in saying that - but it is what happens in human structures.

They are being squeezed by:

• 90 years of history and corporate weight - which includes the great totem 'we must not sully the brand' (Just ask Coke-A-Cola and how risk averse they are)
• 30+ years of customer expectation - most of which is built on how things were 30 years ago and cannot be met today at a price people will pay.
• Bitten underneath by EZY and all.
• Bitten horizontally by KLM, DLH and all.
• Bitten by trains and 'why are we travelling at all?'
• The continuing recession in the West that has, in my view, at least another five years to run.
• <append other items>

[mixture]

Just ask Coke-A-Cola and how risk averse they are

Is this the same risk-averse Coke that's about to put (some of) their mission-critical workloads into the cloud ?

Risk averse isn't the problem.... the latter half of your post is...

Bitten underneath by EZY and all.
Bitten horizontally by KLM, DLH and all.
Bitten by trains and 'why are we travelling at all?'

Nail.. head. PAXboy has managed to miss his thumb !

Particularly number three and [insert name of your favoured conferencing platform here]

[PAXboy]

Thanks mixture. With regards to a well known beverage company, I should have specified more clearly that they are risk averse with their brand. After the 'new Coke' debacle, they have not experimented much. They might well be saving cash behind the scenes but the brand has to be kept inviolate.

I agree about tele-conferencing, which I was involved with from the mid-1980s onwards during my time in telecommunications. Folks will recall (and here I risk yet more lambasting) that one of the reasons (please note I say one) of the reasons that Concorde fell out of favour - before it's demise - was the arrival of the laptop computer. If you can work across the Atlantic, you don't need to get there so fast.

Today's 20-somethings have grown up with tele-conferencing. So I repeat that I am sympathetic to the old crowd of carriers but it is a one way street.

[ExXB]

Originally Posted by ExXB

Do the new seats recline? I personally hope not.

Apparently:

Seat recline
Club Europe reduces from 4.5" to 3"
Euro Traveller reduces from 4.5" to 2"

And if the pitch is the same in Club as in the back, this actually makes it worse in the front, when you get reclined into

Boo, Hiss! Why not put in 'no-recline' and keep everybody, except for a few , happy!

[Hotel Tango]

The thing is, if BA want to go down the RYR route, I might as well fly with RYR
(which would be a first for me), aaaaaagh

[mixture]

And if the pitch is the same in Club as in the back, this actually makes it worse in the front, when you get reclined into

That's why one sits in 1A old boy.