Originally Posted by JohnMD
While I agree with you on most levels I can't help but think AA has one of the strongest followings of business customers in the world - a lot of Fortune 500 companies use American as their primary airline for employees. I'm sure AA will continue to fill up the business class seats with business customers who are restricted to fly AA because of company policy.
But BA certainly does look to be on the way to profitability.
AA has mainly legacy corporate accounts lock-in which has kept AA alive in its premium travel business. AA is your father's oldsmobile for the old world companies (and media companies). Their current product will not attract new world companies (which is not necessarily that big a problem now as the tech boom collapsed). But if the cycle brings up many new companies, AA will not be the carrier of choice. CO did very well in this regard stealing many of the new world companies with their new image marketing but they have their own problems.
While BA may have superior products, it is difficult for them to get US corporate contracts. If US didn't have a protective market for its own airlines domestically, BA may very well have tried to cherry-pick domestic routes and would have been well-poised to grab a good market share of the US corporate markets. Right now, they get premium business from US corporations that do not have coprorate contracts or where the top management can fly any airline they want. BA also has an advantage if you want to fly to destinations beyond UK. If US protectionism for domestic travel against foreign airlines or foreign ownership were to be removed, BA would be in your face all over the US and have the financial strength to do it. OW (and perhaps even AA) would be history. This is not necessarily good for the consumer, of course.
BA also has the right business model inside Europe because of the LCC competition. While they were as bad as AA in extortion fares earlier, they has to come to their senses and introduce their own version of SimpliFares (no sat night restrictions, etc) long before the US airlines were forced to.
Of course, BA is not as "generous" as AA for FFers unless you fly premium classes but that is a correlation not a causal factor of a good business model.
I do agree that BA has a good business model although I am not at all fond of their coach product and their frequent delays (at least in my experience) for intra-europe travel (a zillion sorry's from the cockpit is very often more annoying than the delay itself).