sunrisegirl

You've clearly never been present when the Italians are around! Signs, pah who takes notice of signs, or anouncements come to that

Teefaf

If I was to print this thread off and post it to someone at BA, who would be the right person to address it to?

OPebble

During the T5 trials, ISTR that all A & B gates (except some domestic A gates) had clear signs for priority boarding and we were told that was why there were 3 (?) lanes/BP readers.

bealine

Would the people who told you that be the same ones that told the staff there would be no queues in T5?

heregiam

When all boarding is being done through 1L I would have thought it better for CE passengers to wait until the end. It must speed up the boarding if those in the back rows are not being held up by people in front putting stowing their luggage. It's more comfortable for the CE passengers to wait at the gate too - I hate being in C or D with an aisle full of passengers next to me.

If the concerns to get on first are purely about luggage stowage then this is a different matter, although equally easily solved. Firstly by the ground staff checking the size of all bags and refusing anything too big as cabin luggage. Secondly if the cabin crew know that CE passengers will come on last, it's very easy for someone to wait in the last row of Club and spot any passenger trying to use a locker in front of the curtain.

bealine

There is one person who would be delighted, I'm sure, to take this on board and look at it.

Our very own Flyertalk Star! adrianjc32!

If you pm him the link to this topic, I'm absolutely certain that he will have this topic raised with the right people.

Should I bump into adrianjc32 in the terminals, I will of course point him in the direction of this topic. I know he is very heavily involved in Terminal 3 at the moment, but he is always approachable and always finds the time for anything that will improve customer service!

.........a bit like someone else a bit further down the food chain really!

ajax

Yes, but for any number of reasons this rarely if ever happens.

I exclusively fly CE when on short-haul European hops. I do about 30 segments per year.

I am very paranoid about not having space above my seat and always board as early as possible, almost always in the first 10 aboard the plane.

I have seen FAs actually enforcing luggage-stowage regs for non-CE passengers in CE bins exactly once on BA in all the years of flying. Once.

Habemuspapam

I also fly CE exclusively, about 80% on the LUX-LGW route. I can tell you that the gate staff at LUX is terrible about priority boarding. They only handle 3/4 mainline commercial jets daily, and really don't understand the concept. At Gatwick, I've found it to be about 50/50.

In the future, I've decided to start documenting every instance for customer service, and requesting mileage compensation when priority boarding is not provided, as it is advertised during purchase as a benefit of CE.

Going slightly OT: I still can't quite wrap my head around why BA and the European airlines are unable to offer a proper domestic business/first seating option. I have almost always been thrilled with the quality of CC service/catering on even the shortest CE flights, (as compared with USA domestic first, where service has become limited to drinks on most flights under 2 1/2 hours,) however I long for the USA-style domestic first seating.

How hard would it be for BA to simply replace the current configuration with, say, WT+ seats 2-2 in the front as CE? If they could combine a better seat with their already, (strike issues aside,) high level of service, I would be willing to pay a bit more for the CE product.

OPebble

Well we could actually see the signs! And it was the BAA trial managers who proudly said there were 3 BP reading machines.

Mutu

times are changing, perhaps it is time to drop flexible CE capacity (which served its prupose well when first introduced) and look at a 8/12 fixed seat CE cabin with proper seating, and no doubt a proper premium fare, catering to F longhaul connecting pax.

But to have a single fleet for shorthaul, not sure that makes sense on domestic or shorter hops across the channel

bealine

I was being just a tad sarcastic (and, yes, I'll admit it, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit! ) The three boarding pass scanners are still at the gates, but the separate "FastTrack lane was only ever intended for use on long-haul services.

On short-haul or domestic services, a third boarding person was triggered when a flight had more than 125 people booked to travel. Part of the "Fighting for Survival" changes (to which we have not really agreed, but we are running with) was that the booked passenger figure now has to be 160 before the third boarding position is opened.

We don't get a third boarder on a domestic flight because all passengers have to be photo-reconciled by G4S security before they come to see us and they only have two positions anyway.

Regular travellers will probably have noticed by now how low on staff we are in the terminal compared with two years ago when T5 opened. Some of this is due to the fact that many of our number have volunteered for crewing duties, but we have shed loads of staff on voluntary severance etc, to the point where it would be impossible to provide an extra boarder for FastTrack on short-hauls.

...........IMHO, there's nothing to stop us doing a Club/Elite sweep before general boarding starts - that wouldn't cost anything and wouldn't demand extra staff. If someone pitches up waving their little piece of plastic once the General Boarding call is out, tough cheddar!

bealine

Nice idea, but I have a sneaky feeling that the "times are changing" maxim to which you refer might just involve taking CE out altogether, apart from a handful of the more lucrative routes. Even those routes (mostly in Eastern Europe and the Russia - Moscow, St Petersburg etc) are looking threatened as rumbles about the lack of proper competition on these routes are being heard in the Palace of Westminster.

CE will remain, just as long as people are prepared to pay for it, but if the demand falls through increased competition, then I think WW would be prepared to let Club Europe wither and die.

FrancisA

... and customers like me switch to *A airlines, and then BA will lose my J and F custom too!

If you want to attract premium customers from Europe on to your LH flights, you need to offer something better than ET. Current CE would be just about ok, if it actually provided all the advertised benefits, which it does not, at least consistently, hence this thread.

ajax

let us hope that WW doesn't do the same thing to Club Europe that was done to services from the regions - that would be reduce quality of service to the point where it's no longer worth stumping up for it.

I can very clearly see passengers refusing to pay the same money that they used to pay for CE if many more things are cut out - well-documented cutbacks in services have already pushed some people over the line and every slice will doubtless push that many more.

bealine

I couldn't agree more! The continual cutbacks in Euro Traveller have narrowed the gap between low cost and full service, and if we either abolish the Club Europe cabin or pare the service back too much, then there would be very little left to justify the extra cost to fly BA.

.........but then, if you guys (don't you just hate that expression! ) are willing to carry on paying for CE, there's no problem! (As long as our accountants are playing fair and accrediting the revenue to the Club Europe and and not lumping it altogether as "Premium Brand Longhaul" revenue!)

My scepticism with accountants is due to the fact that this what led to the demise of our London - Plymouth - Bristol - Newquay service and London - Inverness route. the revenue from the Long Haul connecting passengers was never included in the revenue calculations for these routes (often the LGW-PLH/NQY/BRS or LGW-INV sectors were included free of charge on a longhaul ticket.)

When some pencil sharpening needed to be done, the red rings were drawn around these routes as being "loss making" - a stretch of the truth by a country mile!