Originally Posted by
choosethedrew
I totally believe all of what you say. It all seems so very unfortunate for BA, first the seat supplier slowing down progress and now the engine supplier stopping the new business class seats being fitted. It appears that there will still be a good representation of OCW as the seat approaches its twentieth anniversary 🎂
As the CS refit is moribund for the meantime, and profits at record levels, I am wondering what resolutions BA could make for the ongoing presence of OCW, should it want to of course:
Wetleases - QF has wetleased very good aircraft from AY - could BA do the same?
IAG orders - the first A321XLR was originally intended for EI but was diverted to IB. Could BA not similarly divert orders to BA?
Equipment change - AA, QF, QR all allow flight changes without penalty, why not BA?
Soft product - improve J soft product to include a starter on late night flights, to bring the service standard up to WT+ level
Anything else BA can do to manage the impact on the customer?
The CS refit is ongoing, I should say, with the last 3 ex LGW 77Es. And the 788s are suspended until February as far as I know. So it’s not like it’s going to take ages. And the design/testing/preparation for the 789 and 388s is ongoing.
Regarding the customer impact, I don’t know what the scores are and what the impact is. In the past, when I worked on projects that had an impact on NPS, I was stunned to see how little certain things mattered. So can’t comment on any of that.
As for the rest of your questions:
wetleases: the market is dry on that front at the moment. Finnair is back up and running, ditto QR (and frankly they were such a pain to work with that I think you’ll have people jumping from the roof if they’re being wetleased again), in fact the only ACMIs you can get these days are your usual HiFly, EuroAtlantic and, I hear, Norse. Not a like for like replacement.
A321XLR: not something BA would need from a capacity PoV.
Used planes: again, there’s a paucity of good frames around. JAL is sending their 77Ws to the scrapper, and the ex CX 77Ws have a very high number of cycles. I wouldn’t touch anything coming from the Gulf with a bargepole, frankly. Walsh really ought to have allowed BA to substitute the 747s with 77Ws in the early 2010s…