Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
My educated and informed guess is that genuinely no decision has been made. That's in the context of the various announcements already made, such as trying to expand the pre paid meals, onboard upselling and reviewing the second short service (East Coast) in the light of competitor positioning. The latter could be good news.
If there was a development in this area, my uninformed guess is that as mentioned by Prospero, it will be like Level. So a food free, baggage free, unreserved seat fare, purely for the bulk comparison scrape websites. As soon as you add a bag, your meal will get included. I actually doubt that many people paid just 99€ to get to LAX and not a centime more.
Well, I think when you list to AC on the videos and read all the reports since he did separate interviews, there are a couple take aways --
- They are still trying to get BOB right in terms of logistics - so I can't imagine that they would launch BOB on long-haul and face the logistical problems they have had on short-haul.
- They understand that some of the cuts such amuse bouche and flowers, while based on surveys, and 'that's not why people fly us' created a negative perception that outweighed the 'every penny we save is a good penny' approach AC was espousing. Hopefully, they have learned as Bob Crandall did, you take the olive out of the salad, not the martini.
- AC understands the difference in what people pay in Y and believes there needs to be a differentiated problem, but he described it as an "industry challenge." However, one can assume they are cognizant of it and want to give the $1,100 passenger and BAEC top tier Y customer differentiated experiences.
- They may have learned - add first, do the PR first, and then snip after, however, it was surprising that right after they spent considerable money tried to but the fire out, AC would light it back by bringing up BOB in Y.
I think it's clear they don't have ambitions to have a F like the Middle Eastern airlines - he seems to think the 787 is a good standard in hard product and size.