Originally Posted by snaxmuppet

The lost revenue, as I see it, is not necessarily directly from that event. I agree... it is unlikely that any one event would result in lost revenue on that occasion. The lost revenue would come from others seeing that this strategy is successful and so it is quite possible that that perpetrator, or an observer nearby, might take a chance on not buying the higher grade ticket in future in the hope they would be successful in self-upgrading. Of course, they would need to accept that they might not be successful but the savings are so large and there being very little (or no) penalty for trying, I could imagine some people trying it on if it looked like it had any chance of success. Flygirl68 says that she has not seen it succeed but surely that is because of observant and competent crews and possibly assisted by passengers bringing it to their attention. I am simply saying that if we don't continue to bring this behaviour to attention of the crew then there will be an increasing chance of success.

My assertion that fares might go up is basic business rules... less income means lower margins so fares are likely to increase to maintain margin. You could claim that this is such a small percentage of BA's income that this alone is unlikely to affect prices and I would agree with that but it all goes into the business mix and so it might contribute.

Just my opinion