[Age_of_Reason]

Not sure why you’re being personal about this forum discussion, VK. So don’t worry, I’m not disappointed at the superior service I’m getting in the competitive modern market.

I suppose it’s like champagne, sometimes the name matters, but only a few can taste the difference. As BA will be able to tell us, soon.

I gave some detail, you respond with generalities; I’m not sure why, But you’re not getting it.

FlyBe is a poor example, with uncertainty documented elsewhere in BT on their codeshare claim and delivery shortfalls with AF.

Premium passengers may be up (I said so too – not just BA). But how many are flying with Business coded tkts on BA UK domestic flights which are economy-class only? Nice business if you can get away with it, but insulting your passengers’ intrelligence is not good strtegy.

[VintageKrug]

There is no real money in Domestic services in England. BA has already withdrawn many of its MAN services. Good.

The slots are more lucrative if used for longhaul. 100 people paying a maximum of £500 simply doesn’t compare with 400 people paying a minimum of £500 for longhaul, and several thousands for premium cabins.

And if you read the link you’d see that it’s in high margin premium cabins where the increase is; entirely in line with Walsh’s strategy.

[theworldtraveller]

WW is the best thing that could have happened to BA in the past 10 years – the airline seems now to be modernising/cutting out costs and it will not be long before the new food, new aircraft and newly recruited crews make a really good airline again. The schedules and safety record of BA is also why I fly BA

[Tete_de_cuvee]

Apparently Walsh has finally conceded publicly the fact that there will be no third runway at LHR

http://www.planestupid.com/blogs/2011/06/24/willie-walsh-rules-out-3rd-runway-heathrow

This should have been an opportunity to add intercontinental routes from UK regional airports. Walsh fails to understand that many potential customers, resident outside the SE, do not want the hassle/expense of getting to LHR, so place their valuable business with competitors.

As a baby would throw his toys from the pram, so Walsh now reaffirms his commitment to grow Madrid.

[Hippocampus]

Truly desperate. You really are clutching at straws in attempting to demonise Willie Walsh at every opportunity.

BA has always lost money in the regions. The profile of regional traffic is relatively low yield leisure traffic compared to high yield business traffic in the South East. There aren’t the yields to justify point to point international routes. BA serves the regions in exactly the same way as other major long haul airlines: feeding traffic into their hubs.

[Hippocampus]

Those three airlines have hubs at EWR, JFK etc for onward connections, Just as BA’s alliance partner AA does which serves JFK and ORD from MAN.

The economics of BA basing 1-2 767s at MAN, GLA, NCL etc with local crew bases, engineering support etc to operate long haul routes just don’t add up. BA has to be driven by hard economics rather than trying to please everybody.

Just because LHR is full doesn’t mean BA can’t grow at LHR. Indeed over the past 10 years BA has grown its LHR slot portfolio significantly through acquisitions. And it is highly likely that IAG may acquire more slots from bmi which, even after disposing of slots to partners, still has more slots than it needs.

[Tete_de_cuvee]

British Airways – IAG – a bad investment.

http://www.shareprice.co.uk/IAG/INTL-CONSOL-AIR

Within 2 years of Walsh taking the helm BA was downgraded to a 4 star airline after the previous CEO had done all the work to win “Airline of the Year”

Under Walsh the share price has plummeted. The BAY price plummeted and then having created IAG at over £2.60, 8 months later is now around £1.71.

When the profits have been reinvested as opposed to paying dividends, this should increase the asset value and therefore the share value. Quite the contrary. So the loss is even greater.

No wonder BA is becoming the DFS of airlines – always having a sale. Shareholders are no doubt praying for a white knight from Asia, who knows how to run an airline, to step in.

Walsh will continue to blame everyone and everything but himself.

[HonestCrew]

Maybe the businessmen posters of this forum could comment here.

A False Economy?
Is it right for a CEO to enforce massive budget cuts on various departments leading to a vastly reduced and/or lower quality product the customers receive, leading to such a huge number of complaints that the profit made must be immediately invested straight back into the product to take it back to where it was originally?

It’s all well and good to say “I brought BA back into profit, I’m such a wonderful leader” then hand over to another CEO who has the job of returning all the things that were cut. Basic things, basic expectations for airline service.
In recent years some of the product your crew have had to serve has been so embarrassing. For those of us passionate and proud of our airline this really grates us!
Departments had to slowly erode the service and product, bit by bit to meet ridiculously low inflexible budgets and see how much they could get away with before customers started to vote with their feet, let along with the pen. You could call it ‘taking the p*iss”.
Of course if those items had not been cut, less profit would have been made, but was it worth it?
Now we have had to launch an internal message of “putting the customer at the heart of everything we do”.
THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE CASE ALL ALONG!

A customer based business needs a leader who understands customers. We all hope our new CEO can undo the damage.
Customers often complain about the ‘little things’ having disappeared from BA, such as hot towels, snacks with drinks, etc. Some folk may not care too much but I only go by what I experience myself.

So, would BA have been better of to have aimed for a lower profit announcement and kept the product the same , or was Willie Walsh right in slashing everything to announce bigger profits risking the annoyance of customers?

[Tete_de_cuvee]

Odd how it is the cohort asking for the removal or censuring of this thread is the same cohort actively encouraging the BASSA-ManishPatel thread despite there being no new revelations for 3 weeks.

Clearly there are some BT posters, or maybe one or two with multiple names, who appear part of a pro BA marketing regime intent on stymieing any dissenting opinion.

[VintageKrug]

I don’t think anyone has actually suggested the censoring or removal of this thread…? More fantasy, I’m afraid.

Fantasy, just like Tête_de_cuvée’s assertion that Willie Walsh destroyed the BA share price, when in fact it doubled between 2009 and 2011 against a challenging economic background:

http://tiny.cc/5oc1p

But let’s not get the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?
—
When there is no cash, then unfortunately cuts do have to be made.

No-one is disputing that reductions were made to help BA through the leanest of times; very many firms faced similarly lean times over the past few years, and made essential marginal cutbacks to ensure survival.

But apart from catering, which was affected (though nothing as bad as is made out on here) or was removed altogether (on shorthaul), many of these reductions were non customer facing.

Every part of BA made cutbacks. Oh, apart from one group, which refused to negotiate and had those cuts imposed.

That was absolutely the right thing to do, and not to have done so could easily have led to the bankruptcy of BA.

It was not a case of making “less profit”, it was a case of minimising losses during a period when almost all Western airlines were in financial uncertainty.

The cutbacks did not result in a “vastly reduced” product; in fact the investment in many customer facing facilities – in T5, T3 lounges, a new Club World, a new First, new premium and economy seating, new CWLCY service, new 777-300ER subfleet, new shorthaul Airbus and Embraer aircraft delivered, new A380 and 787 fleet on the way, Galleries lounge concept, online functionality such as the iPhone App continued.

Customers did not “vote with their feet” and desert BA, in fact premium customers have been on the rise for some months now, as have margins. Up 14.2% in July:

http://www.iairgroup.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=240949&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1592546&highlight=

You specifically mentioned “hot towels” as a service which had been eliminated. It was specifically down to BASSA that such a service was removed from the WT+ cabin:

http://www.uniteba.com/LGWLHRhottowels.html

“Your TU does NOT support the introduction of the hot towel in WT+ (or any other enhancement that is going to involve extra work or “passes” in the cabin) without a change to the crewing levels.”

The necessity to reduce costs was not helped by the industrial action which BASSA created during a most serious economic downturn, necessitating even further expenditure to mitigate such action, and the need to create a cash buffer.

I agree with Hippo, it really is a delusional mentality which continues to peddle such deceptive and blatantly untrue propaganda. Certainly not keen to stymie anything, just to correct the untruths.

[HonestCrew]

Right, now VK has thrown his toys out of the pram with ANOTHER BASA rant, can anybody else comment on the question I asked?

Remember, as crew we received the feedback from customers face to face, not a head in the sand version that friends in head office may like to give you.
Of course the product hasn’t changed much with regards to the service, it’s still drinks, starter, main, desert, cheese, coffee etc….. but the QUALITY certainly has.

So, was it a false economy to cut the budgets for all these departments to show a profit, only to have to put those profits straight back in to return the product to it’s original state following the huge number of complaints and feedback from customers?

[VintageKrug]

You meant “dessert”, not desert.

It was not a “false economy”. The departments did not show a profit, they showed a loss until very recently. I recognise that it may be hard for you to understand that when companies make a loss, cuts have to be made.

Now that profitability has returned, thanks to the tough decisions made by Willie and his team, it is right that those profits be plowed back into the product.

I wasn’t flying BA much in Q4 2010, when many of these cutbacks took place. But I can say that the food was genuinely delicious on my last CW flight about ten days ago, the new F lounge dining menu is an improvement, and on my visit last week the staff in the Concorde Room do seem considerably more motivated than has been the case in the recent past.

The photos in this trip report paint a rather different picture of the service standards aboard BA, with particular interest in the food which looks well presented to me:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/1249453-lhr-jfk-lhr-ba-new-first.html

[JonathanCohen09]

Hello Honest Crew,

I will try to answer the question that you asked asi think you make a very valid point. I should say now in case you were not aware, that I am no big fan of BA but I am not one of the BA bashers either.
I will try to give you a purely personal opinion based on my experience of many airlines including BA.

I think that all airlines including BA have to get the balance right between reducing costs to restore profitability and cutting costs so much that actually end up hurting the profitability that you are trying to restore as you end up loosing valuable premium passengers who end up voting with their feet. These people fly with other carriers and when they do and find the product is as good if not better than the carrier they left, are unlike;ly to return. In such instances you could argue that the airline went too far, as you are suggesting, as they have possible lost a potentially high valus passenger for good.

I think though, certain poster’s slavish loyalty to BA come what may aside, that BA seems to have got it about right as they have weathered the storm without loosing too many passengers and their premium traffic seems to be on the rise.

Was it a false economy, I think that only time will tell. It would be interesting to hear from posters who have given up on BA for now or for good due to cuts. I guess if there were to be enough of those then it would indeed have been a false economy.

I hope that goes some way to answering what is a complex question, as different people have widely differing opinions, as can be seen from the posts on this thread alone.

Please continue to post here HC as I for one like to hear the opinions of someone, like you, who is directly in the firing line of public opinion.

Best regards to all and safe travels.

JC

[esselle]

VK, you do provide many moments of levity!

Telling people off for spelling mistakes is a bit rich when you use words like “nomenclature” in an entirely inappropriate way!!

[Tete_de_cuvee]

Attached is the actual British Airways share price over 5 years.

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/3945/bay5shareprice.png

There aren’t many people who would be oblivious to a boss who took a premier division winning team down to the fourth division in consecutive seasons only to wax lyrical on being promoted to back to the third.

At the point when WW strategies and initiatives should start to yield benefits, the BA price was above £5.50. Walsh took it down below £1.50.

Recovering from £1.50 to £3 after tanking it to begin with may be laudable and a notable story in VK’s world, not mine.

– especially as it was only temporary, now it is back to the fourth division for the investors.

Q. How do you make a small fortune investing in BA/IAG ?

A. Start with a large fortune and put Walsh at the helm with VK advising.

[Author]

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