[SimonS1]

To be fair I would seriously question the judgement of anyone who books an economy air ticket to do “something special”. I would have said a bit of realism was needed there. It’s a means of getting from A to B.

[canucklad]

Apologies Simon ,should have made it clear that they were flying from EDI to LHR.
He’s not short of a Bob or two and can be a snobbish ass at times. And that’s my point, he uses EZ a lot for his work. He “Gets” the Easyjet way of doing things and sets his expectations accordingly.

But BA in his eyes is the best of British and all that guff…..He bought into the whole “To fly,to serve” silver premium service middle upper class branding that BA peddles.

I’ll finish with his quote ….. “Same aircraft, Just a different colour of seat”

[SimonS1]

That’s my point though. Domestic flights on BA have been all-economy for years now. Do people seriously book these flights expecting some form of silver service? Flying into the most congested airport in the UK?

The whole ‘best of British’ thing is what you said, a load of guff.

[WillieWelsh]

Though isn’t it time BA were honest about their service standards.

There remains a perception as evidenced by canucklad’s colleague that BA offers something better than the competition. The reality is they don’t and they are trading on a past reputation rather than the reality of today. Failing to correct false impressions is an appaling way to do business, it’s dishonest although not illegal. Perhaps they need something more accurate than ‘To Fly To Serve’ these days.

Mr Michael, am I to understand from your post that the public sector funds travel over five hours in business class from tax payer’s money?

[MrMichael]

WillieWelsh, it depends on a number of factors and in which country that public sector belongs. For UK public sector I understand it is only above a certain banding one can get business class, as my work is as a subcontractor then if working for the UK then no. An example is the Foreign Office, where certain bands go business, below that economy unless travelling as a group with those entitled to business. I also do work for the Spanish public sector, and any travel I do has to be “the most cost effective”, make of that what you will. As all my work is within Europe it would not apply anyway, and I do not fly anywhere on behalf of the UK public sector. When I do travel by train for example my regular treck to the DVLA at Swansea, it is economy (2nd class). I rarely work for central government, 95% of my work is for local government (Highways & Transport).

A colleague does work for Kuwait and Dubai, when going to from Kuwait it is economy, Dubai is business.

[canucklad]

Exactly WW
I personally aren’t fussed about how BA choose to deliver their customer service. It’s an airline that has succeeded in alienating my custom, so are now an irrelevance to me up here in Scotland.
What continues to amuse me, is the facade of quality.

It’s akin to seeing the unmistakable neo classical style of the Ritz hotel, heading through the front doors and discovering you’ve booked yourself into a premier Inn with a nandos attached if you want food : )

[SimonS1]

I must have missed the facade of quality. I can’t seriously think anyone gets on a domestic flight in UK (regardless of airline) expecting some type of luxury. If you have Ritz level expectations then you are seriously deluded.

Maybe Canucklad’s pal thinks BA is still a monopoly being run by Lord King but in most regions (certainly the US and Europe) the golden age of air travel disappeared years ago.

[WillieWelsh]

SimonS1 – 11/06/2016 15:38 BST

Perhaps you need to widen your social circle. I have an elderly cousin who lives in the north east. She travels between her house in Spain and NCL with easyJet regularly. Her perception is that they are fine but she often wonders wouldn’t it all be nicer to travel with BA via LHR. I repeatedly convince her that it wouldn’t but she still believes it would be a better experience somewhat akin to when she and her late husband used to travel the world with BOAC.

canucklad – 11/06/2016 14:35 BST

Totally agree that BA are an irrelevance here north of the border. Until last year I used to use them for London but got so fed up with pay more for less I’ve now moved entirely to easyJet and as I travel mostly eastbound we have great choices at EDI from KL, LH, TK, EY and QR and none involve transit of LHR T5.

[SimonS1]

Perhaps your cousin needs to get out a bit more then. Like everyone else she will find out Lord King is dead, Comets no longer fly and BA is a bog standard airline that gets people from A to B. I’m surprised someone who travels regularly could be so out of touch.

Then again those people who remain loyal to the brand are great for the share price.

[WillieWelsh]

SimonS1 – 11/06/2016 19:47 BST

She gets around quite a lot thank you and in fact for a lady of 96 she’s pretty fit traveling to Spain alone.

Of course the point you make bears out all that has been said. If you don’t travel BA and recognise how far it has fallen then you still do have a perception that they are something special because they have never chosen to alter it to bring it to reality.

Sadly Lord King is dead and probably turning in his grave seeing a once great company with British in the name being run by a turgid little Irish man. Therein of course is part of the problem, no national pride at the top.

I’ll keep encouraging my cousin to be brand loyal to easyJet.

[CathayLoyalist2]

Canucklad. “BA is a successful airline”. That depends on what yardstick you are using to define success. If it is purely to drive the bottom line and keep shareholders happy then you might be right. If success is providing a product/service that by general acclaim is consistently good, where people go out of their way to buy it and the employees are proud to say I work for BA then the answer is “No”. The short answer is BA lost its way a long time ago and doesn’t really know what it is, is thrashing around in the dark and therein lies the problem. Given the work I do that looks at, amongst other things, aligning communication between senior management’s goals with the rank and file I bet you that the gulf between the top and bottom would be huge. There are considerable discrepancies in most companies. With Ryanair, Easyjet etc you do know what you are getting hence expectations are realistic.

[lesmclaren]

CathayLoyalist2 – Well put, a very concise and accurate statement of the whole situation.

You might want to delete the duplicated post!! [smile].

[CathayLoyalist2]

lesmclaren, there is a tech problem with the BT site which I understand from posts on other threads is a “Site Cache Error”. Being non-tech I haven’t a clue what that means unless it refers to BA withdrawing another service element which I see they will do later this year namely the “SkySoloFlyer” so anyone under 12 will not be able to travel alone.

[LPPSKrisflyer]

CathayLoyalist2 – 12/06/2016 09:32 BST

I didn’t know BA were stopping their unaccompanied minors service – then I don’t really need to.

I wonder though how many of their loyal travelers today started their life in travel as an unaccompanied minor and continued to fly BA because of it.

I guess this is just another part of the ticking time bomb.

[lesmclaren]

CL2 – Had not heard about the “skysoloflyer” one probably because it would not affect me. BA really are racing to the bottom, I am sure there are still a lot of very wealthy people who have children at boarding school in the UK or joint custody arrangements that use this service. If I was one of them and this service was withdrawn I would quickly move any business I did with BA to another carrier. Maybe this is something that really will impact the BA bottom line as I would imagine there is potentially a lot of premium travel involved here!

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