[rferguson]

The ones on BA are along similar lines to KLM’s.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/bas-new-paid-for-economy-meals-reviewed

[canucklad]

Again I’ll reiterate the potential damage BA is doing to its long haul offering.
If an airline or any company, gains the reputation of being cheap, the long term consequences can be financially crippling..

Take the average Scottish business traveller, demographic that must be critical to the BA profit coffers, based on the sheer volume of seats that feed into fortress LHR..

With this continual obsession with seeking out ancillary costs to charge us, whilst covertly (allegedly) removing our existing benefits, why would I have BA as my airline of choice.

Domestic: With BOB, their more expensive than FlyBe, Easy and definitely Ryanair.
European: A no brainer, CE is no better than EZ, KL, LH and I don’t have to transit LHR
East & South : Hmmm , BA over Etihad , TK or QR….a no brainer
West: Apart from KL,LH I can choose AC or UA…..

If I had shares in BA, I’d be instructing my broker to keep a close eye on inevitable downward trends

EDIT to add …… Why doesn’t BA just throw in the towel, and nstall self serve microwaves, where we can heat our own meals……

[MrMichael]

Canucklad, I keep a very close eye on all my shares but particularly IAG because of my interest in this forum. I actually do not see any downward spiral anytime soon nor do I see any reason there would be one. Iberia have had BOB for many years now and their Long Haul is now doing pretty well. IB have a pretty similar set up to BA with Madrid being a feeder hub for its long haul offering. There is no evidence at IB the degradation of “perks” on short haul has had a detrimental effect on long haul margins or loads, in fact the contrary is the case.

I am genuinely disappointed that BA gets stick on this forum for almost every move it makes. I fully appreciate and understand why people complain, and they are dead right, BA is on a mission to the bottom (within Europe). The problem for BA is it has to go the bottom, because that is where most of the market is, because that is where turnover and profit is. It will lose some customers along the way, some of those premium customers, but ultimately that slack will be taken up by the very bottom feeders (those where £ are the overriding booking principle) that are happy with a low intro fare and have to pay for baggage, food etc etc. BA is ultimately a low margin high turnover business.

[ba747fan1]

Mr Michael – I thought BA’s profits were from long haui. If the deterioration in short haul service deters those premium business travellers, then it surely will have a knock on effect on profits. I always travel club long haul and am loyal to BA but would look elsewhere if short haul becames BOB as no need to be loyal.

[DerekVH]

This article demonstrates BA is actually cheaper than some of the LCC

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3592397/British-Airways-start-CHARGING-flight-meals-short-haul-journeys-s-Waitrose-food-menu.html

[JohnHarper]

I think it’s about expectation, no one for many years has had any expectation of anything decent from Iberia so what there is tends to get praise.

OTOH ‘the world’s favourite airline’ still creates expectations with advertising and its history of delivering decent service. The average traveler has no idea about IAG and the name on the side of the plane is what matters.

The fare comparisons in the Telegraph article demonstrate clearly how out of kilter BA fares are with easyJet and Ryanair. That shortfall is not going to be made up with the removal of a few sandwiches from short haul economy.

The market is not all at the bottom though that is where BA seems to want to compete. On the other side of the world Qantas played that game, couldn’t win because of base costs and reinvented themselves as a quality offering charging a bit more but with things like hot meals on almost all sectors including SYD-MEL – the equivalent of LHR-FRA and definitely over meal times in economy. The Qantas domestic offering is now profitable but of course in Europe we don’t want that sort of service or at least the beancounters don’t want to provide it!

To compete Virgin installed business class seats on their short haul fleet and started to offer free food in both classes.

As an aside, I’ve seen some very good adverts both in the press and on television over recent weeks for an economy class product that looks very good. The strapline is ‘Upgrade to Emirates’.

What a pity they are not allowed to compete on the North Atlantic. Surely there’s an argument for them to be allowed to if nor from LHR from the many other destinations they serve.

[JohnHarper]

rferguson – 17/05/2016 08:36 BST

I think what you are demonstrating here is how out of touch you are with BA management thinking at Waterside! These meals are a huge success and the fact that you have only seen one and maybe many of your colleagues have not seen any is totally irrelevant to the management spin that they are indeed a success. 😉

BA may fear VS/DL but it looks like they want to compete more with Norwegian where I believe the BOB is almost inedible – so WillieWelsh’s point about paying £30 for today’s slop is probably just about right.

[EU_Flyer]

JohnHarper – 17/05/2016 10:04 BST

Good point about QF and VA lifting their game on short / medium haul domestic – even offering an international quality product on coast to coast services that makes BA’s equivalent (LHR-Athens/Larnaca at 3.5/4 hours) look very ordinary.

That said, I get the impression that fares in Australia are higher than Europe in a mile/mile basis given the significant LCC competition. Plus, Oz is a real duopoly as opposed to Europe with all its hubs.

Still, whilst the cost saving/revenue generating potential of BOB might exist – I’d be turned off flying BA if they introduced it and switch my allegiance to Star or Sky given that the only OW carrier I fly in Europe is BA (and I don’t live in the UK).

With legroom at a minimum, catering is the main product differntiator b/w BA and the LCC in Y class. If that goes, so might BA as a first choice for many.

[rferguson]

John Harper – yes ‘huge success’ and ‘enhancement’ are two words i’ve come to know well at BA 😉

Cannot agree more about domestic air travel in Australia. It really probably is up there with the best in the world (if not the best). The competitive (??) landscape is completely different though. There are basically two full service carriers (QF and Virgin Australia) and two loco’s (Jetstar and Tiger). But both the loco’s are owned by one of the full service carriers. So I imagine they do little to ‘compete’ with their parent. In europe we have fierce competition from the locos that on a european scale dwarf BA anyway (and would certainly dwarf QF or VA probably in entirety).

NO european airline has made a real effort to morph into something ‘top tier’ in it’s european short haul offering in a bid to become more profitable by attracting higher spending customers. It just doesn’t have the market. None are offering old skool full trays with three course hot meal choices in economy on the main trunk routes under 4hrs. Unless you are flying at less three hours plus you are pretty much guaranteed to get some variation of a sandwich if you are lucky.

Air travel really is the only way to travel domestically within Australia. There is no viable rail alternative on the east coast corridor -SYD-MEL/BNE so the airlines have it sewn up. And to be honest it’s not that long that Virgin Blue morphed from loco to full service Virgin Australia.

In fact it was not that long ago that Virgin Australia abandoned it’s own BOB practises which it had in place for years with only water tea and coffee being complimentary in economy. Virgin Australia still offers food for sale on it’s flights (although ‘free food’ is given now too) and anything other than tea coffee and water has to be paid for (except weirdly on flights departing 5-7pm M-F).

Qantas still charges for booze as well except for wine and beer at certain times of the day.

Where they both excel is their amazing domestic business class offerings.

At the end of the day I guess they are offering the different freebies at different points of the day to target/impress the passengers they wish to retain. ie the coveted business traveller/corporate contract.

I believe corporate contracts are the main drivers behind QF and VA’s domestic profitability and that they fight tooth and nail to snatch them from one another. I think in europe (although admittedly I have no clue on the corporate world!) allegiance to a particular short haul carrier doesn’t really exist with network/punctuality and timings being the biggest drivers when it comes to making a choice.

[AisleSeatTraveller]

i read on the BBC that the offering would be in partnership with waitrose, so premium sarnies etc (not sure if this has been mentioned previously)

[AllOverTheGaff]

MrMichael – 17/05/2016 09:52 BST
The problem for BA is it has to go the bottom, because that is where most of the market is, because that is where turnover and profit is.

What?

As someone who actually fly’s with other carriers, I cannot for the life of me understand where this statement comes from. I can’t really comment a great deal about the economy flying experience from other airlines as I mainly use LoCo’s from EDI, but in the premium cabins, I see no other airline continuing with an antiquated and unpopular business class product. In fact, almost all of them are now have direct aisle access / suite type J seating. (Of the one’s I’ve flown; AA, AF, KLM, Cathay, JAL) And then there the middle eastern carriers who continue to offer improved service, menus, IFE and introduce new aircraft regularly. The 1st class product is also light years ahead of BA, and the service on board is 9/10 excellent.

Which of these market-driven airlines continue to restrict their “executive club” members by culling benefits on a quarterly basis or making it nigh on impossible to spend the reward you’ve loyally built up? Which other “bottom” market dwelling airlines is it that you speak of?

If you are proclaiming BA have all but given up on the premium travel market and wish instead to get some of EZY/O’Leary/Jet2 business, I can agree with that thought process, however, BA will struggle as these other LoCo airlines have outstanding non-London routes to Europe, US, Middle East and are legitimately world-wide now.

IMO, the reason BA come in for so much stick is because their new board has taken what was a world class airline with an industry wide reputation for excellence and innovation to one which languishes behind almost every major airline now. Yet they arrogantly trade on past glory (like 20-years ago glory) whilst the airline industry left them for dead.

Still, the IAG shareholders are happy, even if their customers aren’t….

Rgds.
AOTG.

[transtraxman]

Seen in Travel Weekly today

“British Airways dismisses meal charge claims as “complete speculation””.

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/61647/british-airways-dismisses-meal-charge-claims-as-complete-speculation

[rferguson]

Haha. Yes speculation. Yet reading on there is certainly not even the sniff of a denial.

My guess is they are hammering out the detail. Whether to only start charging for food? Charge for food and drink? All drinks or just booze? What about for Exec card holder? Etc etc.

[BigDog.]

AllOverTheGaff – 17/05/2016 11:22 BST

+1

However ..Still, the IAG shareholders are happy, even if their customers aren’t….

Well IAG are down 10% over the last year (down from 610 to 510 this year alone) and have underperformed LH and AF – despite LH suffering industrial action. IAG needs perform consistently above the 570 peak level Walsh inherited in early 2007.

As an investor I would avoid airlines – including Locos

[AMcWhirter]

And what about the provision of galley space for BOB ?

I’m sure rferguson can advise further but I was under the impression that some of Europe’s conventional airlines were in the process adopting the new Airbus A320 “Space-Flex” concept where both space for the galley and the toilet are reduced.

It’s already appeared on LH’s new A320 neo and BA has ordered a number of these aircraft too.

[Author]

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