[SimonS1]

[quote quote=1094696]I think the customer profile in business class changed a fair bit over the past ten years. Definitely at BA anyway. And not just Club World, but First as well.[/quote]

Yes. Very interesting point and changing dynamics. In the last 15 years the ball game has changed completely in the ‘business’ arena. For example:

1. Trend towards removing First (as Long Haul Business has most of the amenities)
2. Introduction of Premium Economy
3. Mid haul is disappearing (so SH aircraft to Moscow, Cairo, Amman etc)
4. Short haul – “business” barely exists now (unless you count a bit of rag separating the cabins and a cheap meal)
5. Lounges closing down? (I see Manchester is gone now)
6. The end of the Babybus, and none of the all business airlines have really made it (Silverjet, Maxjet etc)
7. Most Western airlines have been overtaken by the ME3 in terms of quality of proposition
8. Other techniques such as ex-EU trips, mileage runs etc

I wonder what the future holds – with budgets (state, company and personal) being tightened will airlines change their game and reinvent themselves along the lines the OP suggests, or will business class also start to shrink?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Polly

[traveldoc]

Have tended to find Emirates and Finnair both offer usable space and comfort in J. Of course both offer direct aisle access (in Finnair on A350, and most of seats on A330). Just returned BKK-DXB-DUB in F on Emirates. VERY comfortable flat bed with dining on demand. Perfect.

[EU_Flyer]

[quote quote=1094696]When I first started working as crew on ‘the big jets’ nine times out of ten I was relegated to working in economy[/quote]

I really enjoy your posts. Articulate, generous in content and easy to read. Please write a book!

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Polly, RomP, GivingupBA, DavidGrodentz, fatbear, ASK1945, MartynSinclair, DerekVH, Montysaurus

[canucklad]

[quote quote=1094696]And generally, they would take EVERYTHING offered. In First Class on a 5hr55minute flight to the UK it was very much the norm to serve a full four course dinner to almost everyone, make up the beds for 70 minutes and then have them waking up wanting a fully cooked breakfast before landing[/quote]

Sounds very much like moving from a Michelin 5 star restaurant to one of those all you can eat for £9.99 international buffet chain joints you find in non-descript shopping malls , but at 37,000 ft and costing substantially more than a penny change from a tenner .

And rferguson , I’ll admit if I was paying that amount of money earned out blood, sweat, toil and sometimes tears then I’m afraid to say , I’d be happy to see you work your butt of keeping me happy as I see my cash disappear at a rate of £670 MPH 🙂

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DerekVH

[EU_Flyer]

[quote quote=1094587]I’m wondering why there is no carrier offering a more basic biz class. I guess Mint is the closest you would get. Just less frills, nothing fancy, just a nice comfy bed. I would even be happy with some sort of bunk bed. As long as I can get horizontal I am happy![/quote]

AirAsia also offered it and it was very basic but the seat was lie flat.

This concept can only really work on a LCC as full service carriers would end up cannibalizing demand for their standard business product. I suspect it would also impact their margin given the discount on a normal J fare would be far greater than their cost of f&b / lounge etc

It would only be viable if de-bundling premium airfares was done industry wide which would be a bold move. BT published an article on this a few month back.

[FRANCESCABARNES]

Absolutely spot on. I have always said I’m not bothered about the ‘fancy frills’, I just want a flat bed to get some rest and stretch out my bones.

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jsn55

[jsn55]

While I love all the fripperies of biz/first, my only criteria is direct aisle access and wiggle room. As long as the seat reclines in variable positions, I’m happy. Friendly, professional flight attendants, edible food and decent lighting are nice, but not essential.

[esselle]

How would this proposed no frills all lie flat seats airline manage to operate profitably? Would it only operate night time flights? If not, what would pax be expected to do to pass the time on daylight flights as, presumably, they would not be sleeping?

[Inquisitive]

RFerguson wrote:

“….Then, it all changed. The CEO’s and Directors that would usually be sat in F ended up in J and many of the execs that would normally be in F were relegated to W or even Y. And we saw more and more and more premium leisure travellers…”

In another thread I visualised this as a post-COVID travelling pattern based on economic situation of the world.
Did not realise that it already started, at least for BA passengers.

[cwoodward]

SimonS1 wrote:
4. Short haul – “business” barely exists now (unless you count a bit of rag separating the cabins and a cheap meal)

I understand that you write rather more from a European based point of view but as many here would know short haul “business Class” is very alive and well in Asia and to an extent in Australasia.
The major brands Cathay, Singapore, JAL etc and most other majors offer a dedicated and quality business product across their networks. With even smaller and what could be termed vacation airlines, Bangkok Airlines and the like offering a very good business product even on hops of an hour or so.
Others may have a different view but I have seen no sign of any decline in the popularity of short haul business on this side of the world, in fact the reverse could be argued.
Of course many of the lowest cost operators ignore anything that could be termed a business class but even some of these offer a product that is superior to the sad European efforts with the likes of Jet Star offering a wider leather seat, more leg room and an elevated food food offering.
Long may it last.

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DavidGrodentz, GivingupBA, Jacob

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=1095127]I understand that you write rather more from a European based point of view but as many here would know short haul “business Class” is very alive and well in Asia and to an extent in Australasia.[/quote]

Indeed you are right- in Africa too. In that case fuelled a bit by political types travelling on expenses.

It was mentioned on the Zambia thread as a possible reason why low cost operators had struggled for traction – I wonder if that will change with the demise of SAA?

[alainboy56]

I would like to add my ‘twopennyworth’ here on this topic.
Many contributors here complain as to why flights ex LHR are more expensive than for example ex CPH, ARL or AMS.
I would like to point out that London and its catchment area has perhaps 15 million people and therefore a much higher travelling population.
LHR is for many airlines the PREMIER route.
Take EK for example and these views and comments are all based upon ‘life before covid’ – they had I believe 7 x A380 flights daily and flight numbers are EK 001/003/005/007 etc etc so one many see the importance EK puts upon this route.
QR similarly had, if I remember rightly 2 x A380s 2 x A351s and a B773 on this route with again premium flight numbers QR001/003/005 etc etc
EY had also perhaps 3 flights daily, including 2x A380s but started their LHR flight numbering system further down the single digit scale purely because the management was/is full of Germans (Ex LTU) so for national pride EY001/003/005 were FRA and MUC flights. I believe the EY007 and EY011 were/are LHR flights.
GF out of Bahrain (and previously out of MCT/AUH/DOH) also uses low flight numbers for their LHR flights. GF001/003/005

So the point I am trying to make is that this route is considered their PREMIER route so whatever fares they can get away with, they would, and three of the four airlines mentioned had huge amounts of transit traffic as that was/is their business model, so being able to fill (at least economically) between them perhaps 10 x A380s was some going.
In fact as a comparison I believe BA flights to DXB, and in the good days they had 3 daily rotations including a B744 were quite competitive not withstanding there were no transit pax. Most were ‘diehard BA fans’ (yes there still are some) and obviously dead-heading into DXB.
So in my view, its not a matter of whether BA is expensive, its the fact that KLM and SAS etc throw in the LHR to AMS/CPH or ARL sector free to get you and others to fill their ‘widebodies’ to the far east etc. After all the whole population of Sweden is only approximately 10 million and Denmark still under 6.
So they need to increase their pax count, and one way was to entice the much bigger UK travelling public (especially from London and the Home Counties).
If our old friend ‘capetonianm'(R.I.P.) was still with us, he would no doubt have explained the fare basis and their algorithms with far more precision.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Montysaurus, Johnnyg, AMcWhirter, ASK1945

[AMcWhirter]

Hello alainboys56

Yes you make a good point. But the matter of tariffs is a subject I have covered for Business Traveller for over 40 years.

BA is a sixth-freedom carrier just like most other national airlines in mainland Europe.

There were transit passengers using BA’s Dubai services. Passengers would transit London for onward destinations in the UK, mainland Europe, the Americas and so on. In fact BA

Yes I agree that Emirates would be offering non-stop flights to these destinations but then BA would reply on its loyalty club members plus keen pricing.

This is a classic sixth-freedom tactic.

In the same way as Air France or Swiss or Lufthansa would sell long-haul via CDG/ZRH/FRA to UK travellers for less than the fare they would charge from their hubs.

Hence cost-conscious travellers in France, Switzerland or Germany grumble that their national airlines are expensive (compared to the indirect sixth-freedom carriers). And a similar situation exists in the UK.

I recall writing a fares piece for the magazine (pre-Covid days) where I compared Emirates’ premium prices for DXB-JFK with those of BA via LHR.

Often BA would undercut Emirates’ non-stop services. Even more remarkable was the fact that if travellers chose their BA flights carefully (according to time and date) they could fly DXB-LHR-JFK-DXB-LHR for *less* than the cost of BA’s LHR-NYC-LHR alone !

1 user thanked author for this post.

alainboy56

[esselle]

[postquote quote=1096118]

I used to be a regular traveller to Doha, where I sat on a JV board, always on QR.

On one occasion I decided to add a DOH-MEL-DOH leg to my trip to spend a bit of time with my daughter who lives there.

I was amazed that my J fare for LHR-DOH-MEL-DOH-LHR was only about £200 more than LHR-DOH-LHR.

Ticket pricing has always been something of a mystery to me.

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AMcWhirter, PeterCoultas, alainboy56

[CathayLoyalist2]

I think it was Sir Colin Marshall, then BA´s CEO, and I stand to be corrected, who said “if customers managed to work out ticket pricing then we are in trouble”

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AMcWhirter, ASK1945, Montysaurus, jsn55, esselle

[Author]

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