[icenspice]

You are correct Mr Michelin, I take the forum far too seriously. But the fact remains that I have a partner (of almost 12 years) who does NOT do travel.

OK, back to topic before Tom gives us both a red card.

Best regards to you and MrsM (how she copes with you is a mystery) ?

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=745533]Being MD of BA / IAG is a bit like being England Football manager: We could all do better as we all know what to do.
[/quote]

The analogy is an interesting one, especially as some England managers have a reputation for not knowing their best team, playing people in unaccustomed positions, failing to motivate their team or organise them effectively.

Quite a bit of truth in that.

As to all the other factors about demanding customers, that’s just being in a competitive market – BA has made it’s choices of operating bases and setup and must live with the consequences.

As I wrote recently, analysis of the DXB route shows 22 direct daily services between DXB and the UK. BA has 3 of these, Royal Brunei 1 and Emirates the rest. Emirates are slaughtering BA on UK-ME routes by offering a superior value proposition.

This is significant, because Heathrow and Dubai are high volume hubs and are, in effect, direct competitors for transfer traffic. When some of your main assets can self position at 500mph, competition is a relatively broad brush.

Edtied to add: When the Economist (a serious and well researched journal) writes an article like this one, there is something going badly wrong. It isn’t wise to take a cost focus market position, when you have a relatively high cost base – of course, what do I know?

1 user thanked author for this post.

GivingupBA

[HongKongLady]

Change and not in a good way, oh dear. I don’t like Mars bars much, hope they don’t come to club. I do however like those lily O’Brien (not sure I’m spelling that right but you know who I mean) that they used to serve on the shuttle, scoured the universe for those but to no avail.

[esselle]

Lilyobriens.co.uk

May-Ann O’Brien started making chocolates in her kitchen for her daughter, Lily, many years ago.

1 user thanked author for this post.

HongKongLady

[Charles-P]

It’s curious how BA receives such criticism here and yet to my mind it still does well many things.

Website – Works well, fast and easy to use.

Food – Generally good with some nice reminders of home for us semi-expats

Seat – In Club World long haul very comfortable and with a nice design

Crew – Professional, friendly and knowledgeable.

Business – Commercially stable and profitable without massive State subsidies.

[CathayLoyalist2]

Charles P, when you say the Club World seat is a nice design I have to ask “Are you kidding”?. 8 across , a lack of storage for aisle seats, cramped in window seats, low ceiling if you are in a window seat and if elderly you need to be something of a gymnast to exit a window seat over the stretched out legs of an aisle passenger. What is your take on the many other business class cabins that are 1-2-1 may I ask.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=750548]It’s curious how BA receives such criticism here and yet to my mind it still does well many things.

Website – Works well, fast and easy to use.

Food – Generally good with some nice reminders of home for us semi-expats

Seat – In Club World long haul very comfortable and with a nice design

Crew – Professional, friendly and knowledgeable.

Business – Commercially stable and profitable without massive State subsidies.

[/quote]

You have your opinion and others have theirs, so it is a matter of perspective

Website – unstable, prone to crashing, information sometimes unreliable

Food – Generally poor, but can be good on certain routes (whether food is nice or not is highly subjective and thus no one is right/wrong, it’s purely preference – I had what I consider a poor main course on Turkish, yesterday, yet Turkish earn a lot of plaudits for the food) – however, failing to get first choice is a problem on routes where pre-selection is not available

Seat – In Club World long haul, little useable storage space when flat, cramped, hate looking at someone I don’t know for long, the stool is prone to collapse

Crew – Professional, friendly and knowledgeable. Can be, some of the best I’ve met have been on BA< but many are demotivated and disengaged and some newer joiners don’t know how to run the service properly

Business – Commercially stable and profitable without massive State subsidies

At the end of the day, BA will always attract more praise and brickbats due to it’s high profile on UK centric fora – however the mood music does seem to be changing in the press – yes, the DM has had always hated BA, but when the Economist ploughs in, it is unusual.

[Charles-P]

CathyLoyalist = while I agree there is little storage that’s not a big issue for me as I travel very light. What I was commenting on was the level of comfort when either sitting or sleeping and here I find the seat better than many. For example I find the Luthansa business class seat very hard and hard to sleep in, the Emirates seat quite good but often lumpy when set for sleeping.

[ViajeroUK]

Have to agree with FDOS and others about the BA Club seating. I thought the ying-yang layout was pretty good when I first tried it in the ´90s, but now seems so dated. The 2-4-2 layout with tight seats is no fun at all, so claustrophobic with the requirement for gymnastic feats to reach the aisle without disturbing your new best friend in the adjoining seat.

Lack of storage space is an issue for me, I wear glasses and there is just nowhere to put them when sleeping, and nowhere for the water bottle either, at least there wasn´t when I last flew in BA Club, which must have been some six or seven years ago. I gave up on BA about that time and now use KLM/AF for majority of my LH flights. No charge for seat selection, plenty of at seat storage for glasses, water bottles etc etc. Cabin crew, KLM in particular, are focused and cabin service is normally excellent, IFE doesn´t bother me as I rarely use it.

For me Heathrow is a pain to get to, so even if BA upped their game I would need big incentives to be dragged away from Schiphol. It remains surprising to me that so many people endure BA when there are so many better, and often cheaper options out there. Not everyone lives in London and regional UL airports are in many cases a delight to use compared to LHR

3 users thanked author for this post.

seasonedtraveller, canucklad, FDOS_UK

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=750560]CathyLoyalist = while I agree there is little storage that’s not a big issue for me as I travel very light. What I was commenting on was the level of comfort when either sitting or sleeping and here I find the seat better than many. For example I find the Luthansa business class seat very hard and hard to sleep in, the Emirates seat quite good but often lumpy when set for sleeping.

[/quote]

I agree about the LH J seat, on EK, I don’t like the 777 seat, but find the A380 seat excellent. The QR 787 J seat is my favourite currently – it’s excellent – everything a good J seat should be and makes CW feel like premium eco, in comparison. OTOH, BA CW makes the TK angled flat seat (e.g. 332) feel like premium eco, so there’s a lot of variation out there. The TK lie flat on the 333 is fine.

[HongKongLady]

Alas it seems they were BA only

[seasonedtraveller]

I have no axe to grind with BA although I certainly do not appreciate their efforts to further cheapen their offerings. I choose to fly with them (and others of course) and have been in at over 5,000 TP’s per year even after the recent reduction in rates.

In the last 3 years, I’ve seen many changes to the BA offering, none of which are for the benefit of the customer.

A direct comparison below between 2 very recent flights to PVG with BA (LHR) & SAS (CPH) seated in ‘Business Class’

My most recent flight to Shanghai with SAS showed them truly investing in enhancing the customer experience – the polar opposite of BA.
My observations are below – fact only.

Boarding:
BA – Called Business & Gold cards only, to board first with silver called second.
SAS – Called Business only first and Star gold second.

Seating:
BA – 2x4x2 coffin style – window has to step over sleeping aisle pax
SAS – 1x2x1 – direct aisle access, massage seats, adjustable firmness settings

At seat welcome from senior crew:
BA – No
SAS – yes, quietly welcomed as a future Pandion (SAS equivalent to BA’s Guest list)

Jacket hang:
BA – had to ask
SAS – done

Hot towel service:
BA – they “forgot” to hand them out (this also happened twice recently on LHR to EWR service)
SAS – yes

Toilets:
BA – clean, but sink leaked onto the floor, empty vase, nothing else available
SAS – clean, stocked with razors, wet wipes, mouthwash, flower in vase

Hot Nut offering:
BA – no, a pack of small pretzels were offered
SAS – Yes

Food & Drink: (did not try wine)
BA – Beer from St Austell Brewery – crew member told me that Fullers will no longer supply at price BA now wants to pay – I cannot report this as fact since it came from the crew.
BA – Usual affair, average in my opinion, nothing new.
SAS – 2 beers from Danish micro, Mikeller – a very tasty IPA & a bottle conditioned Coffee Porter comissioned by, and brewed exclusively for, SAS.
SAS – personal opion only but, excellent high quality offering with a genuine attempt at restaurant quality food.

IFE:
BA – A good choice of films etc but the screen only folds out partly
SAS – Brand new IFE system – touch screen – choice of programmes not as good as BA

Galley area (self serve):
BA – getting worse each time I fly in terms of what’s available and for how long – no coffee machine
SAS – Fully stocked, self serve ground coffee machine, generously re-stocked

Table at seat:
BA – unable to hold a laptop. Table slopes steeply towards the window
SAS – very sturdy, working is easy

Crew:
BA – seemed to dissappear after the meal service….
SAS – attentive & visible throughout

Disembarking:
BA – Are very good at this as they always ensure CW pax get off first – very helpful when there is a long line at security & immigration.
SAS – Arrival at CPH was poor as those seated in Economy simply rushed forward & off the aircraft without crew doing anything to stop it. Consequently, when I arrived at CPH security, the line was already very busy (there were probably 70 people in front of me from our flight) – my connection time to LHR suddenly became very short indeed.

ST

2 users thanked author for this post.

canucklad, FDOS_UK

[Charles-P]

ViajeroUK – I was interested to read that you prefer Schiphol over Heathrow. During the period when Brussels was closed I made use of Schiphol for a number of flights, the journey there is very easy for me as there is a direct train connection from Antwerp which is close to my Belgian house. Curiously I did find the airport somewhat lacking ‘warmth’. It may well be the single terminal design or the brusk manner in which the Dutch conduct themselves when traveling but either way I did not enjoy it. They do however do security well, with a large number of scanning areas and staff that seem to have been well trained.

I did use KLM for a flight to the US during this period but I found the Business Class seat to be very uneven making it difficult for a comfortable sleep plus on my flight the privacy screen between the seats kept rattling which was annoying. Overall not as good as BA in my view.

[MrMichael]

I am not sure of the figures but a lot of airlines have as their premium offering Business Class. I guess for those that still do offer 1st Class they somehow to make sure the business class is good, but not so good as to stop people booking first. As an example, BA has on many aircraft four classes, all of them going to from the same place at the same time. So the question for an airline is how do you get people to choose to pay more for the same trip. It can only really be done through pre & post flight services and onboard quality of the hard and soft product. I figure airlines that only offer two classes (econ/business) have an easier time of it. They do not have to make sure premium economy does not steal pax from business, business does not steal from first etc. Must be quite a hard balancing act for BA and others with similar product lines that need to differentiate the different class levels without hacking people off so much they choose an alternative airline (as some on here have clearly done).

[Charles-P]

MrMichael – interesting post and I agree. I rarely fly First anymore simply because the quality of the Business Class product is fine for what I need on a long haul flight. One areas where I assume people are prepared to pay is privacy with the new closed designs from some carriers.

[Author]

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