[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=867289]Well, yes, FDOS, that’s a fair comment but EZY is primarily a point to point operation with only three fare types, so no connections, no classes, no complex fare structures, no redemptions, etc, so it’s a little unfair to compare, but of course you are correct. What they do, they do properly, which is more than can be said for BA.

Not only that, but their aircraft are new and generally pretty clean and tidy, with smiling crews, more than can be said for BA, although earlier this week I flew out of LGW on an EZY ‘plane that looked a bit scruffy, but we were bused out from the terminal to somewhere halfway to Cardiff, so I’m guessing that it’s an aircraft that was drafted in at the last minute to replace the one scheduled for the service.[/quote]

You’re right, capetonianm, easyJet’s business model is simpler than BA’s, on the other hand, as a ‘premium carrier’, BA should have invested in their systems to a commensurate degree – after all, they are only facing the same challenge as any business that has been around for 50+ years and has developed a ‘creeping architecture’, which needs regular pruning.

[capetonianm]

They pretty much did a clean sweep when they migrated bits of their legacy systems (Boadicea/Babs/Speedwing) into Amadeus/Altea in about 2005, but rather than take it as it was, which most of the other 150 or so Altea airlines did, they rejected a lot of the functionality in favour of hybrid solutions and wanted lots of tweaks and changes that had to be ‘made to work’ so that it resembled the old systems that they were getting away from. The analogy I can think of is replacing an old Fiat with a new Mercedes and putting Fiat components into the Merc so that it looks familiar and works the old way. A complete nonsense.

The rest, as they say, is history! It must have cost them millions, in development, lost customers, lost goodwill, staff turnover, empty seats or poor yields. They have gone so far that the cost of changing would be massive, and so is the cost of keeping it, rather like getting the UK out of the EU.

As they say in Afrikaans and Dutch, “Goedkoop is duurkoop”, roughly translated, a cheap buy is an expensive buy, or ‘you get what you pay for’.
Peanuts/monkeys!

[Tom Otley]

All of which is true, I’m sure, but then strange that the CEO seems to place such importance on technology

Air Amazon? British Airways CEO says biggest threat to industry are ‘big data guys’

“What happens when Amazon believes they can price a flight to New York better than an airline?”
British Airways CEO Alex Cruz explains.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=867359]All of which is true, I’m sure, but then strange that the CEO seems to place such importance on technology

Air Amazon? British Airways CEO says biggest threat to industry are ‘big data guys’

“What happens when Amazon believes they can price a flight to New York better than an airline?”

British Airways CEO Alex Cruz explains.[/quote]

That article doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, to me, it could be the way it’s been written.

The first part, about leveraging technology to improve service is hardly looking forward – Martyn Sinclair of this parish has been using that type of tech for years and it speaks volumes of BA’s lack of urgency in collaborating with such suppliers, to improve the service.

The second part is ***shock horror*** Cruz thinking about what competition might be like 🙂 What doesn’t come across from the article is whether he sees Amazon being a player in the sense of building an airline (and I suspect the barriers to entry are a tad on the high side) or acting as a consolidator. It’s one thing to collect a lot of data about ticket sales, it’s entirely another to build an airline architecture that works.

Either way, that’s why you get the big bucks Alex.

I believe that culture is far more of a problem for BA, than competition from big data players. The ‘Fortress Heathrow’ mentality, combined with an obsessive focus on cheapness, drives an ugly product and service.

[MartynSinclair]

I have never understood the need for “can you fill out this form please” mentality. Bar codes on luggage, luggage receipts, boarding passes, passports – why on earth is there any need to write your name, address, flight number, point of departure, destination, date, time, colour of bag on a piece of paper, for it all to be uploaded or converted back into data, when ALL the information is in the computer somewhere.

There are so many things that need to be bought into the 21st century, nothing more urgent than lost bags… especially, when the airlines own computers can tell where a bag is at any one time…

As far as BA’s website is concerned, yes there is a lot wrong with it.. but just made some avios bookings for flights inside 24 hours – simplicity and speedy…

[TominScotland]

BA are not alone in their dreadful website. Have you tried to use the KLM site recently? I flew with them last week and, while a purchase on board was debited instantly, the miles for my flights still remain absent.

So I tried to use the Claim Missing Miles function which freezes after you input your information – “Retrieving your data”… One time I did get there, it did not recognise my flight details…

So I e-mailed Flying Blue and got the following helpful automated reply:

Dear Mr. TominScotland,
Your request has been taken into consideration by our services.
Since the launch of Flying Blue for Me, we have been facing an increase in customer requests.
We make every effort to respond to you as soon as possible.
To help us serve you better, we invite you not to resend your request.
This is an automatic acknowledgment receipt. Please do not reply to this email.
See you soon on flyingblue.com.

Your Flying Blue Team

Helpful? That was a couple of days ago

[TominScotland]

Now in active conversation with KLM – they do seem to have problems recognising their own Booking References…… so no miles added as yet

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=868190]BA are not alone in their dreadful website. Have you tried to use the KLM site recently? I flew with them last week and, while a purchase on board was debited instantly, the miles for my flights still remain absent.

So I tried to use the Claim Missing Miles function which freezes after you input your information – “Retrieving your data”… One time I did get there, it did not recognise my flight details…

So I e-mailed Flying Blue and got the following helpful automated reply:

Dear Mr. TominScotland,

Your request has been taken into consideration by our services.

Since the launch of Flying Blue for Me, we have been facing an increase in customer requests.

We make every effort to respond to you as soon as possible.

To help us serve you better, we invite you not to resend your request.

This is an automatic acknowledgment receipt. Please do not reply to this email.

See you soon on flyingblue.com.

Your Flying Blue Team

Helpful? That was a couple of days ago[/quote]

Benchmarking cr*p v cr*p is all well and good, but the site is still cr*p.

[Author]

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