[dutchyankee]

@Pomerol, I fully agree with your comment about the fact that it is fully fair that BA have the dominant position at LHR, and actually, when compared to other carriers, such as LH in FRA/MUC, KL in AMS, AF in CDG, etc., percentage wise, BA`s dominance is miniscule. However, I take offense that just because people have negative comments to make about BA that they are then somehow part of an Anti-BA or BA Basher group, and to defend VK when it is he (or she) that lobs more vitriol, hate, negativity, insults, slurs, and rudeness to anyone who should dare say a word against his precious BA, is simply being hypocritical. Sure, there are some on here that try to stir the pot or get VK to boil, but the same can be said of VK, and far more often. So while wanting to defend VK, you might likewise want to be more even handed so your comments can be taken more seriously.

I too find a great deal of the info VK posts to be helpful, but in all reality, almost 95% of what he posts is cut and paste from BA webpages, news, internet links etc., what some might actually call pro-BA propaganda.

And for the record, I am an ardent fan of BA, just dissappointed of late, and am able to view BA with realism and not some view that thay are holier than thou.

[MartynSinclair]

Good morning / afternoon Ian,

Because the 777 main cabin feels like a large cinema / take away whilst the 747 (upstairs) feels more like an exclusive club!

[IanFromHKG]

Well, Martyn, with 20 seats I would hardly call it exclusive on the upper deck, but I see what you mean! I personally prefer the smaller J cabin on the CX 777s, which have just 8 seats.

Mind you, while looking at the seatplans in order to make my first point above I decided to do a quick comparison. And guess what? The old CX (coffin class) J seats on the 747? 22 of them -10% more than BA… Maybe herringbone is more “efficient” than yin-yang… Who knew?

[Bullfrog]

DutchYankee .. I could not put it better myself.

I am a BA fan & am constructively critical where necessary. That does not mean I am BA bashing.

BA First is my preference, and then VS Upper. I find CW too cramped.
CX First for most of my Asia flights & Australia.

Changing planes in the middle of the night through the Middle East is a non starter for me.

[Senator]

Good morning,

Let’s first address the question of pooling resources and assets between American Airlines and BA. A few years back, BA along with IB and AA received approval for a Joint Venture on the North Atlantic business. Wikipedia defines a JV as:

“A joint venture (JV) is a business agreement in which the parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets. There are other types of companies such as JV limited by guarantee, joint ventures limited by guarantee with partners holding shares.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_venture

So we can assume that BA and AA share revenue and cost on each-others’ North American flights including domestic/European feeder flights on this side of the Atlantic, and domestic/Canadian/Caribbean flight across the pond.

I am neither a big fan nor do I find the current BA offering in CW and F to be dreadful. From my home market, I find good price/performance ratio with BA for what I pay for my tickets to North America and Asia. I rarely spend more than equivalent of £2,000 on a Club/Business ticket to anywhere I go (Australia and NZ is not on my list yet) and can use Avios to upgrade to First for a reasonable price.

I suspect that BA can continue to milk their substantial corporate market in Greater London for another couple of years with the current offering.

I have a dear friend just about to adventure out on 3 segments on the new AA B77W, I’ll try to get some feedback from him.

Lastly, my personal view is to keep some “regionalisation” in mind when looking at competition. From my point of view, I tend to compare BA’s offer with the LH Group and AF/KLM. In this respect, I find the BA F offer a poor cousin, but CW stand out compared to AF/KLM and the mother-ship Lufthansa German Airlines. I can’t understand the poor planning in Cologne when it comes to their Business Class offer. The First Class is second to none, but Business is poor specially when compared to the stars of their own group: Austrian and Swiss. I think it is slightly misleading to compare BA to CX or even SQ as they are not BA’s main competitors. Both the AF/KLM group and LH Group come out poorly in comparison as well with CX and SQ with the notable exception of LH/LX and AF First.

[Bucksnet]

Ian, I have posted before that BA are too slow to roll out new seats and CX do it a lot faster, but I did not realise that they have done so many planes in such a short time. Well done CX!

If the new business seat is only on 2 plane types, and the rollout is finished, then you do indeed know what you’re getting in advance. Do you know when the A340s and 747s are going to be retired?

[MartynSinclair]

Ian – for those of us who still use BA CW; if you check out the seat maps, upstairs generally fills far quicker than downstairs.

With only one galley at the back, upstairs is also generally quieter than having to endure constant walk throughs.

There are still far too many “observations” of crew galley noise disturbing F/J pax, downstairs.

This does not usually happen on the Asian carriers….

[Travellator]

Ian from HKG – http://ftdashboard.net/ this site gives an overview of what flights have had New ( or not so old ) first.

We have 2 F returns in September to HKG returning on BA 28 recently changed to 747 instead of 777 – horrified that most BA 28 flights are ancient first.

BA gave a guarantee some time ago that ALL HKG flights would have New F.

Old First on this flagship route – incredible !

[Be_Nice]

Horrified, try not to take 100% to heart, the aircraft may change again so far off.

Also don’t forget aircraft changes can occur even on the day of take off.

Marlene

[IanFromHKG]

Martyn, I completely understand, and on the rare occasions I fly BA (including next weekend, as it happens) I always try to get upper deck, as does the memsahib. All the advantages you cite apply equally to CX’s “baby” J cabin, incidentally

Travellator – thanks for the link. Perhaps you should try CX new J instead – probably cheaper, and as against old F probably nicer! It does seem odd that they would use ancient F on that route but then I suppose they don’t regard it as their flagship route, an accolade I suspect they give to the New York route. Of course for CX it probably is the flagship route which I assume is why (from what I have seen) 4 out of their 5 daily flights are on the new 773s, with just one being old J on the 747

[Travellator]

Ian – F was an Avios upgrade from CW.

I find almost no difference in price CX v BA in J on this route – fares match almost to the penny – almost cartel like.

Travelled CX J some years ago but was angled flat upper deck 747.

Arrivals lounge at LHR a bonus as we have an onward connecting flight on arrival.

[IanFromHKG]

Fair enough, Travellator, although I think I would have paid the same, taken CX J and kept the Avios 🙂

CX offer use of the AA arrival lounge at LHR and also have an arrival lounge in HK. Mind you, if you have a connecting flight, couldn’t you use the departure lounge for the next flight and avoid double-immigration at LHR?

[Travellator]

Ian – onward flight within UK – NO showers etc in BA lounge T1

Arrivals lounge in HKG is Floor 43 Four Seasons !

[Bucksnet]

BA could if they really wanted to guarantee new first on certain routes, and old first on others. They need operational flexibility, but it can be done by having certain routes that are a mixture of old and new.

Routes where they face the best competition should always be new first, and old first where there is no competition, until those planes are retired. We would then know what we’re getting.

[AllOverTheGaff]

Senator – 14/06/2013 07:39 GMT
Lastly, my personal view is to keep some “regionalisation” in mind when looking at competition. From my point of view, I tend to compare BA’s offer with the LH Group and AF/KLM. In this respect, I find the BA F offer a poor cousin, but CW stand out compared to AF/KLM and the mother-ship Lufthansa German Airlines. I can’t understand the poor planning in Cologne when it comes to their Business Class offer. The First Class is second to none, but Business is poor specially when compared to the stars of their own group: Austrian and Swiss. I think it is slightly misleading to compare BA to CX or even SQ as they are not BA’s main competitors. Both the AF/KLM group and LH Group come out poorly in comparison as well with CX and SQ with the notable exception of LH/LX and AF First.

Good morning Senator

Interesting that you choose LH & AF as your perceived main competitors for BA, well, interesting to me in that I have never used LH or AF long haul, have used both for short hops to Europe but they don’t make my list for anywhere meaningful because of their cabins which you rightly point out aren’t up to scratch. Having said that, one thing I was unaware of before joining this group is how good LH’s first class is, I might look into that a little more.

Given BA’s just lost a ton of custom to Australasia to EK, and given EK’s aggressive growth at UK regional airports (not to mention their 7 A380 flights from LHR) I would have put EK at the top of the list as a BA competitor, and back to seating, EK wins hands-down in the premium cabins.

I know AA & BA have their partnership, and clearly it must work for them, but if I am an AA customer and I enjoy their plush looking new cabins, and for whatever reason I need to reschedule and end up in Old First or a middle seat in CW, I think I’d be justifiably pee’d off and would begin to schedule my flights around AA – in fact – I’ve done just that on my trip in November, bypassed BA for AA’s new plane.

I guess it keeps coming back to the initial question of if/when BA will put something new on-board their planes to even catch-up with the opposition and what they are offering, it rather occurs to me if one of the competitive airlines were to offer a similar frequent flyer reward scheme it would hurt BA just as badly as their lack of on-board innovation.

Regards.
AOTG.

[Author]

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