T8191

Thanks, PUCCI ... an interesting analysis.

"We" all have dozens of different reasons for flying BA. I agree that the FFP is one of my reasons, but if the airline wasn't up to much then they couldn't even pay me to fly them!

BA suits us on several levels ... safety and reliability, comfort [in CW], connections, routing, price, schedules, baggage allowance, FFP ... there's probably more **. I couldn't even start to apply a priority to all those items [apart from the first] but they all get factored in somewhere.


** ... cabin crew, food and beverage ...

kered

Well done PG ^

I think that is probably the most accurate summation of the actual cross section of BA's customers, I've read on here for a long time.

It's all too easy for us FT'ers to get caught up with the minutia of the various aspects of FFP's, leading us to think that these things are actually important to the broader world. When in actual fact they are not at all !

But this goes to show, what I've always thought, the ins & outs of the BAEC doesn't really matter a single jot to the larger proportion of BA's millions of PAX.

brunos

Hi Pucci Galore. Your comments are very true in many respects. Frequent posters on FT are a biased bunch who do care about FFPs and not representative of the average journey(wo)men who fill the planes and have little interest in status and are not aware of the planned changes. But also remember that an extra 1% in load factor makes a huge difference in the bottom line and can move the airline from loss to profit. Even a 0.01% is significant to the bottom line.

All pax (or their company) care about value, meaning quality and price, with the relative importance of quality and price depending on pax (or their employer). FFPs are marginal, except for lounge access. You are right that many business pax travel within a company policy and their corporate contracts. But remember that the environment is competitive and European corporations tend to have contracts with several airlines (and quite often freedom to choose another airline if you can beat the best fare offered by the contracts). Also note that executives who travel in premium cabins tend to have more freedom of choice than a lowly employee in economy. I am focusing here on LH premium. You are quite right that airlines segment their local market (e.g. LX charges high fares to Swiss residents or AF to French residents), so Swiss pax flying BA must have a cost motivation. But also remember that Swiss residents flying longhaul have many choices, not only expensive-LX and BA. So, it would be interesting to also get information from those who chose another airline than BA and that you could not interview. But the common perception among my corporate friends is that BA is pricing itself out of the market in J in major European countries, so that other benefits they can offer are not insignificant.

I agree with you that lounge access and seat-selection benefits (Silver) or Gold benefits are somewhat marginal factors. So is the marginal cost/benefit for BA of drastically reducing BAEC attractiveness for Euro-reals in order to eliminate Euro-cheats. I know some posters on this board who are indeed frequent J class pax, as opposed to many whose only experience with premium cabins is walking through them when boarding the plane. And I am not surprised that we have the same strongly-negative reaction. It is a business decision on the part of BA and it will be a business decision on our side. It could very well be that BA will make more money from the elimination of Euro-cheats than the loss on a few thousands Euro-reals. But to minimize that loss, it'd better lower prices and improve ancillary service. By service I mean for example the antiquated obligation of calling your Europe center which is open a few hours everyday and never when you are far away on the planet (what about a global 24hr line?). The lack of AMEX 241 or actually any BA cc for most countries, the lack of Tesco-equivalent, the lack of promotions, etc�

To summarize: marginal=undoubtedly, significant=possibly.

brunos

You might be right. But other airlines have had different experiences. A FFP is both a cost center (award miles cost a lot) and an incentive program (to attract pax). AFKL made a drastic across-the-board reduction in their FB in 2010. It led to a huge balance sheet improvement (cost of accumulated and future miles), but they felt the pinch in business. They backpedaled on some changes and finally offered free status match to any customer holding some status in any airline.
It could well be that British will keep buying British and French will keep buying French; but the innovative French buying British?

stueys

Interesting, I work for a big corporate with a tight travel policy. I chose who I fly with, though that sometimes requires some effort on my part.

Ultimately I'm very motivated by the FF scheme as to where I fly. But that comes second after product and convience.

kered

Of the (admittedly few) people that I know that have to travel for work, they always seem to end up on BA. But that's largely due to the fact that most travel agents here, seem to just default to an EI/BA combo for any & all long haul travel, unless the customer actually specifies otherwise.

None of them really care who they fly with, nor care where they sit & just take whatever seat is given to them during OLCI. One person didn't even know that they could make a seat change during the check in process !

Class of travel is determined by company policy & they all just go along with that. On one occasion I had to educate & explain about the lounges for a friend who was travelling in CW for the third time & didn't know what I was talking about, when I asked what they thought of the Galleries on a previous trip

The general consensus amongst them being just get the trip over with, get the work done & get home as soon as they can.

Two of those whom I refer to, are members of the BAEC, having seen a promo in High Life (I think) & are of the opinion, that they might as well collect the miles, as they might be worth something sometime ! But that's about the extent of their knowledge, or indeed interest, in the BAEC.

Very different mindsets to most of us here on FT, but quite common I suspect among the larger percentage of traveller.

PUCCI GALORE

Brunos - I am due to have a meeting with Powers That Be at BA - may I please use some of your most interesting and reasoned comments when I speak to them?

I hope that I covered part of your comments under the fact that BA cannot afford to be complacent. Sometimes, things have to be compromised because of the costs involved whether I like them or not in terms of passenger delivery. I would however say that an airline lets its service rely on its FF scheme and let everything else go will not keep people for long. I always think of Virgin whose product is excellent and because of its product it attracts customers and keeps them from what I can gather. How much Euro traffic they get connecting through LHR is not known to me.

Things change all the time and you are right - Swiss Corporations (or are they multi-nationals based in CH - I do not know) can change their policies if the price is not right. I suspect that the high value of the Swiss Franc has something to do with why they choose to fly with us or other Euro-airlines. I don't know for sure, this is just my speculation

T8191 and Kered - I really expected to get shot down - thank you.

NickB

I pretty much agree with what both Pucci and Bruno said. it is very easy for FTers to grossly overestimate the significance of FFPs. For most travelers, it plays a small role, if any, in deciding with which airline to fly.

Still, airlines must consider that, although a minor factor, it influences airline choices enough for it to be worth their while having.

If you decrease the attractiveness of your FFP to a fraction of your customer base, it is pretty much unavoidable that some will leave. The issue is the same as with any other product change: how may will and do the savings or other advantages that you expect from the change outweigh the loss of custom?

kered

No problem, my dear, I thought your comments based on the research you've done, were very reasoned & I would think, very representative of the vast majority of BA's pax.

If BA & indeed other airlines, had more people like you working on the front line, who are willing to take the temperature (so to speak) of the vast range of their customers & go on to feed that back to the higher powers, they (the airlines) would be in a much more informed position to judge what it is the customers want, need & wish for. All of which would go a long way to making the correct business decisions. I hope that when you do speak to the higher powers, that they listen to you & take on board what you have to say. For you have a perspective on BA's customers, that most ( I would imagine) at corporate HQ don't !

Yes Virgin's product is very good, I really like it. It has it's ups & downs just like any airline, but overall Upper Class is an excellent why to travel. When it comes to Euro connections via LHR, I can only speak about my experiences, but suffice to say that it's not easy.

When booking on their Europe site, we have to use BD for the DUB-LHR feeders & their schedule is very fragmented now out of Dublin & as a result most of the connections are either too long or way too short for me to be comfortable with. Booking separate PNR's to use a more convenient EI DUB-LHR flight for instance is pretty much cost prohibitive, as the ex LHR fare with VS are way more expensive than the ex DUB fare.

Same with BA mind you, the ex LHR fares being substantially more expensive than ex DUB/ORK/SNN. But this is where the EI/BA combo shines with a very well populated EI schedule out of DUB & ORK to LHR to match up with the BA long haul flights.

Which is probably why most Irish TA's will by default book EI/BA.

HIDDY

Very well said.

BA aren't daft.....they know their customers profiles far too well. Changes have had to be made and on the whole I would say the changes are for the better.
The feedback from this forum alone has been mostly positive and the odd negative one only to be expected.

brunos

Of course Pucci Galore. I am honored by your interest in my poorly-chosen words.
The fact that I go out of my way to fly BA shows that I enjoy the product and service and BA is one of my preferred airlines. But only one of.

One difficulty of managing and working for an airline is the diversity of customers with various origins and motivations. Price and quality are obvious and hardly worth mentioning. Softer aspects of the product such as FFP are not negligible to some of us. The bet that the sudden discrimination against Euro-reals will minimally affect their travel decision is a bet. Actually, it appears that some believe that upping the thresholds will make pax fly more on BA to reach that doubled threshold; maybe right who knows for sure. Might happen with Euro-cheats.

BTW, Virgin gets very little Europe traffic.

bernardd

If you want a clear demonstration of what happens you only need to look at the US 'legacy' carriers where pretty much the only marketing they do is around their FF scheme, and their biggest sources of revenue are credit card issuers.

All the airlines, BA included, have been guilty of forgetting their core values to a greater or lesser extent. The jury is out on whether BA's re-adoption of "To Fly, To Serve" is real or merely a bit of signwriting, but hopefully it signals some reversal.

One of the things I find hard to get my head around is how this is going to work in the JBA you have with AA. I thought the point of the JBA was seamless travel, so the operating carrier didn't matter? In this case it looks like you're widening the differential which must make the JBA more difficult?

NickB

It has been overwhelmingly positive from UK-based BAEC members and overwhelmingly negative from Euroland-based BAEC members. But then, this is what one would expect given that the changes are pretty much universally positive for UK members and predominantly negative for Euro-members.

HIDDY

More like.....predominantly negative for UK based Euro-members.

NickB

No. I think that euro-genuines have been very clear in expressing their dislike of the changes.

UK-based Euro-members, aka Eurocheats, are somewhat better off than Euro-genuines since, at least, they get lower rate redemptions whereas the new segment-based system will result in an increase in burn rates for many Euro-based members.