[openfly]

Two rows means a reduction of seat pitch from a poor 30″ down to a miserly 28″, and that includes 28″ in Club Europe! That pitch is reminiscent of charters in the 1970s.
When is BA management going to realise that they are shooting themselves in the feet again?
This 28″ seat pitch gives EasyJet even greater commercial advantage. Their product is looking to be so much better than that offered by the Worlds Least Favorite Airline.
I’d like to say that all this is unbelievable …. but it isn’t.

[MartynSinclair]

@openfly – I think BA management know passengers are not and will not walk with their feet, otherwise they would have done so by now.

BA thrives, because of Heathrow, Gatwick, membership in oneworld, excellent connections, prices in real terms lower today than 10 years ago and avios and despite what many think, BA is a respectable brand.

Yes I could write a far longer list of BA’s failures & in some cases degrading way they treat their customers, starting with even more reduced seat pitch, as your thread details… but the bottom line is, loadings are high and BA are only interested in reducing their costs in any way possible. I don’t think passengers will walk away….or consider BA as the Worlds Least Favourite Airline….

As some say, there will come a point where the whole thing will implode… time will tell….

[AMcWhirter]

Ryanair is making the most of it.

This morning it tweeted an illustration of four seats with their respective pitches: Ryanair B737-800 New Sky Interior 31 ins, Ryanair B737-800 30 ins, BA A320/321 29 ins, Lufthansa A320 economy 29 ins.

What BA is doing in economy on its A320/321 is what Lufthansa started to do over a year ago when it took delivery of A320 neos. (See our new item below dated January 2016).

But Lufthansa also took the decision to restore pitch in business class to roughly what it was before.

It means pitch (legroom) on Lufthansa’s A320 fleet will become (or may already have become) 71 cms (29.1 ins) in economy but 81 cms (31.8 ins in business class.

Lufthansa to offer less legroom than Ryanair

[Panda01]

@MartynSinclair- I agree with you and I think BA are taking advantage of this. Ultimately I think BA is going through a midlife crisis. I don’t think they know who they want to target and if they can with the type of airline they are. They have the looks, but no substance to back it up. This is actually creating more reasons to fly with BA’s competitors than with BA themselves.

[LuganoPirate]

My theory is they are downgrading to the likes of Easyjet and will then sell their entire European operations (LHR slots included) to perhaps Easyjet who will then feed pax into BA’s longhaul network which is profitable.

[MartynSinclair]

@LP, why would BA sell their European operation to a LCC (Easy or otherwise) and reduce their size? It is all profit profit profit…. unless of course it implodes…

Do you think Easy would find an open door to LHR?

[Edski777]

It seems that BA adheres to a policy to continue along this path as long as they cab get away with it. So far the number of passengers using BA offsets the amount of disgruntled passengers that choose another option.
After all it seems that we choose our carrier based on 1. Price, 2. Convenience, 3. Comfort and service. And as long as BA can come up with a comparable product at competitive prices without having to fly with empty seats I don’t expect Willie to change course.
And as for “valued” customers: this typically means lower revenue customers using their Avios. My guess is that BA nowadays would rather have paying customers.
I wonder what the next move will be to increase revenue. My prediction is that they will start looking at their Frequent Flyer program.

Any other options?

[Flightlevel]

It’s thought the lowest level of service and highest number of seats will provide enough load factor for a profitable and competitive operation and since there is a ready market (from longhaul flights) this is probably true. How much legroom and service does one need on a three hour flight?

[Londonfrog]

Here is the next step to cut costs…

Cost-cutting British Airways bosses let planes take off after a ‘light clean’ and without emptying the TOILET waste-tanks

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=795057]My theory is they are downgrading to the likes of Easyjet and will then sell their entire European operations (LHR slots included) to perhaps Easyjet who will then feed pax into BA’s longhaul network which is profitable.

[/quote]

I don’t think so – IAG seems to be harmonising the cabin configuration of all short haul airlines (BA, Iberia, Lingus, Vueling) and my thought is a group wide view will provide economies of scale and possibly horizontal integration of the supply side to the long haul ops.

The longhaul operations will remain differentiated.

[planegeek]

Interesting how Easyjet are still considered by many on here to be sub-par and lumped in with Ryanair. Good crew, clean planes, good onboard offering, major cities served and for £10-£15 e/w I can get great legroom, an extra bag and priority boarding. I’m happy with that. As for BA, I think Mr Sinclair said it perfectly.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=795159]Interesting how Easyjet are still considered by many on here to be sub-par and lumped in with Ryanair. Good crew, clean planes, good onboard offering, major cities served and for £10-£15 e/w I can get great legroom, an extra bag and priority boarding. I’m happy with that. As for BA, I think Mr Sinclair said it perfectly.

[/quote]

I completely agree. Though I don’t use easyJet as much as I did when I lived in Malta, if you compare them to BA on a like for like (Y class, O&D) basis, in my view BA is inferior. BA CE has more features, but is overpriced cr*p.

[CathayLoyalist2]

A classic case of BA trying “to put lipstick on the pig”!

[CathayLoyalist2]

…but more pertinently who are BA/what are BA?.

[canucklad]

A couple of points to make………

I don’t think IAG will sell to a LCC competitor, why would they, when they can transition EI/BA/IB’s short haul fleet into Vueling and further save money by adopting that model.
And although they’ll be operated by Vueling , they’ll for all intensive purposes , appear to the customer flying between, say EDI and LHR be flying on BA. That way, they can fleece us for an extortionate amount of money.

And sadly Martyn & Edski are spot on. From a consumer’s point of view BA will continue to stress their operating costs versus fares and fees revenue until we say enough is enough. BA is just another company in rip off Britain, that will happily pick our pockets at every opportunity

[Author]

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