[openfly]

Vintage Krug What does ”mythically” mean???

[Senator]

Dear all,

Interesting discussion about the future of a premium product within Europe like CE or business on other airlines.

Air Lingus is the only former “full service” airline which has scrapped it all together to my knowledge. I am not UK based, but I believe most BA domestic services is single cabin only. SK operates single cabin domestically here in Scandinavia, and Economy and Economy Extra within Scandinavia. KLM Europe Select has really few advantages as European Business Class. Lufthansa and Swiss maintain business on domestic routes as per my experience. I think AF runs one cabin only on domestic routes and business cross-border.

In my discussion with airline managers, many admit that the discussion about scrapping business class in Europe all together has been on the table many times. However, surveys show that (still) there is a sizable group willing to pay for premium service. Furthermore, and more importantly is the notion of a 2-2½ hour connecting flight to a hub (CDG, ZRH, FRA, MUC, LHR) in 32A, connecting to 1A in First class. It is very unlikely this would go down well.

Is business class/CE dead as standalone product? Well, I was recently on a LH flight from LHR to FRA with 12 rows packed with business class passengers. I was on PMI-ZRH with five rows packed with business class passengers. I personally don’t think short-haul premium is dead, but it is more important for feeder flights than as a standalone product. When it comes to BA CE product, I have mostly been on the ARN-LHR run where I find it to be an excellent product and I am always able to pre-board, my jacket is hung, the meal is appropriate in quantity and quality for the time of the day. £350 return in CE is a steal in my book, and I get what I expect.

I am always puzzled by how some people always seem disappointed by any airline experience. We are in a “can” made by composites and aluminum, flying at +30.000 feet, our senses are numbed by lack of oxygen, we feel “entitled” to be treated like royalties, and expect to be served a meal of “Fat Duck” quality. Honestly, I feel we expect too much for £350. I for one, have perhaps had a bad experience in 1 of 200 segments with disinterested staff, bad food etc. Perhaps I am too forgiving, too lenient but I feel privileged to be in CE and not entitled to be there.

As long as I can find a fare below £500-600 return from ARN, I tend to go in business/CE. If the fare exceeds this I tend to go in the back.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Senator

It amazes me what you north Europeans and Scandinavians will accept

If you fly Air Malta from London, in business, you will get a fruit juice before take off, 2 hot towel services, a meal with a cold starter, choce of 2 hot main courses and a cold sweet. Also you will have an open bar service (as you would on BA.)

You will fly on a young A319 or 320, which looks new inside.

All this for 500 euros.

Air Malta has convertible seats and 34″ pitch, but if you wish to have proper business class seats, Cyprus Airways will oblige with a 40″+ seat pitch and 2×2 seating.

BA’s CE product is, IMHO, poor these days with the removal of many of the little things that make travelling more pleasurable.

I don’t think BA’s pricing is as smart assome others, either, to show this is the case, I recently booked from Heathrow to Basel, with the C price being £600 and the Y £81.

Having booked the Y, I was then presented with a screen offering me a £100 upgrade to club. I didn’t bother for such a short flight, but found this approach quite curious.

Whilst understanding the notion of upselling, doing it so cheaply makes it look a little desperate to me and I would not be best pleased if I had booked at £600, only to discover that Y pax were upgraded for 1/3of the price of my ticket.

Even if the £600 is fully flexible, it was the only one on offer and the whole thing seemed to be a bit of a rip off.

[Senator]

Hi, some good points here. Perhaps I should try Air Malta.

From ARN, most major cities across Europe is at least 2 hours away. For me given my 192cm and 100kg frame business class is superior on any flight longer then 90min. Most airlines offer a ‘real’ meal in business exARN given the length of flight. The only exception is LH who take advantage of the duopoly with SK to Germany. LH food in Europe is rubbish!

I rarely get into the 90 GBP vs 600 GBP situations you describe. At most we are looking at a 250 GBP difference.

I guess we simply all have different expectations.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Hi Senator

I note that I omitted the 😉 after my first sentence, please accept my apologies as this was meant to be a fun comment.

At 178cms, I have a few more options than you :-), but do prefer business on longer flights, as well.

Are our expectations partly set by what we receive, I wonder?

I totally agree about LH food in Europe.

[Senator]

Cleaned my horrible spelling errors from mini-screen on my new SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Mini 😉

Now back to topic!

Don’t worry, I got the humour. You’re right, I think Brits and Scandinavians tend to be on the opposite spectre of expectations. Brits can queue better than anyone in the world, but would take home the World Cup in complaining; football, weather, food, and of course BA 😉 Sorry for the generalisation

In either case, I will continue to use Business class if I can afford it and the fare difference is up to £200.

[Binman62]

It surely does not matter where is the world ones is flying to make a comparison. The issue is that in Europe we have sacrificed service. BA charge £900 return in club to TIP and over a £1000 to LCA to sit in a seat no different from economy passengers. The meal offereing is poor wine only passable and the crew would not know your name if it were written on your forehead. SQ to HKG same flight time and the same fare but a A380 and SQ service to boot. CE is dead for anything under 2.5 hours and the current business class is not going to attract anyone wanting 1A ex LHR when the attendent risk is, not getting bags, a bus on arrival or departure and all the other issues known of LHR. Why do this when yoy can have emirates direct on long haul with just one stop to almost anywhere. And not just emirates almost any decent airline now flys from small european airports.
If BA or anyone else wants to keep people paying a premium they have to provide a premium offering and simply handing out a handful if airmiles everytime something goes wrong no longer cuts it.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Agreed.

I had the ‘pleasure’ of a CE ride from Moscow in a disgusting old 767, with half the monitors in the cabin out, a poor meal and a crew who were more interested in talking amongst themselves.

Switching over the Air Malta to go home, the service was several times better.

Pretty amazing to think that the national airline of a country with only 400,000 inhabitants offers a better service than one from a country of 60 million.

Club World is still generally excellent, IMO, despite some cuts, although the hi J 747 is not my favourite place to be.

One gets the impression that BA’s heart is not in short haul.

[openfly]

Hi DisgustedofSwieqi (where is that!!??)….just about everything you say is true, I agree. But you have really taken your life in your hands. When Lord Vintage Krug reads your comments he will go ballistic. You just cannot say those things about BA CE in public … :-))

[VintageKrug]

Actually I entirely agree with much of what DisgustedofSwieqi says.

The “longer” shorthauls, and especially Larnaca and Moscow, and even more so when on one of the clapped out 767s, are not really suited to the CE configuration.

It’s a lot to do with what the competition offers, and as BA still manages to charge very high prices vs. Aeroflot’s better seats, there must be something BA provides which Aeroflot does not.

But the majority of CE is under two hours, and in those timeframes CE is just what’s required.

Shorthaul is indeed not as profitable as longhaul, and while it might stretch the point to say their heart is not in it, I don’t think it is central to future strategy which is primarily around growing longhaul.

On the last point, I think it’s perfectly reasonable that a smaller country’s lesser known airline would be able to offer a better product than a significantly larger carrier.

With a smaller fleet primarily used for the 2+ hour flights, Air Malta has to differentiate as they don’t easily attract feeder traffic and can tailor their product to that specific market.

[Author]

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