I guess it’s a matter of how much more.

No secret that it is very often possible to pay (as many FT-ers regularly do) less than what BA ask, and yet receive a high level of inflight service with quality catering standards, on various other carriers. Attractive fares and a top product are by no means mutually exclusive. Quelle surprise.

I’ve been very motivated to try BA business once again for long-haul ever since the much-anticipated new Club seating was rolled out. The CS would have been my personal catalyst to use BA not just on s/h but l/h too ; but now the LCC-style meal service has dented my enthusiasm somewhat.

In essence, there is a real prospect of BA developing a reputation for both high fares and sub-par service levels, a sort of worst-of-both worlds combination.

As for ‘frills’ ……. BA have never really offered ‘frills’ or innovative benefits to premium passengers : for that you’d have to look to airlines like EK (chauffeured cars to & from airport, inflight lounge-bar), QR (DoD in business, inflight lounge-bar) or even WY (PJ’s in biz, DoD, albeit limited network) BUT all the evidence is that BA have been hiking prices at the very time they are falling short of what could be reasonably expected in return for those same high fares.

On the wider point of improvements, the initial focus must inevitably be on simply restoring the status quo of pre-pandemic service levels. That in itself is proving to be quite a challenge, which in turn raises the question of just how far off are genuine ‘new’ improvements of the sort which would begin to raise standards - both in the air and on the ground - as promised in the January (IIRC ?) press release.