BA short haul product vs. the LCCs
 

I've been doing some thinking about the short haul "enhancements" that BA have made over recent years.

I'm sure most people would agree that there is very little to differentiate BA's short haul product with that offered by easyJet and Ryanair, for example. Indeed, it seems to me that apart from a free drink and snack, BA offer little more than charging a premium for flying from Heathrow.

However, I'm struggling to think of how he short haul product has been "enhanced". There have been changes to the food provision, the introduction of the new short haul cabin and the optional HBO fares, but what else? If I'm not mistaken, easyJet and Ryanair also now have allocated seating and have made themselves more traveller friendly.

So is it a case of the LCCs improving or BA "enhancing away" that has made the short haul experience so similar across the board? Do any of you think that BA could make changes or proper improvements to short haul to improve the customer experience and still make a profit at the end of the day (though I do know that BA short haul isn't profit making...)?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts....

Jamie

I'd say for non-frequent flyers there's no longer much difference. Frequent flyers get the benefits of BAEC. My gold membership make flying shorthaul a much more pleasurable experience.

But for the occasional price concious flyer they must come out about equal. BA and the LCCs both give discounts for not checking in bags, most LCCs now allow you to select a seat for a fee (like BA, but BA allows you to select for free at the 24 hour mark, I believe EZY allocates at random). BA has complimentary catering (but can amount to an individually wrapped crisp on shorthaul) and a fairly decent bar selection but the LCCs have better variety and selection because they need to encourage you to pay for it.

If you want lounge access and are flying from T5 you need status or business class. Most other terminals and airports (including the ones the LCCs fly from) have option of a paid lounge.

Some people may find LHR/LCY most convenient, so BA wins. Others may be closer to LGW (so BA may be an option but more likely EZY will fly where you want to go) or LTN, STN or one of the regional airports where the LCC may fly direct.

For me personally: I prefer BA and I prefer LHR in general. However, EZY generally also have good crews and when it makes sense to I actually enjoy flying them. I've always paid for the front row, fast track and speedy boarding, bought something decent to eat and a few beers and it's not bad at all. These days I will look at EZY whenever the BA price drifts into crazy territory, that's only been a couple of times at most.

Ryanair have tried this year to be more passenger friendly and finally started aiming at business passengers. Not sure how well it's going because they don't fly to/from anywhere I want to go. But if they did I'd now consider them.

If you have any concerns about punctuality, then flying Eazyjet makes sense, particularly if you can access Gatwick, and particularly on Domestic sectors, which are the first to get binned by BA when there are problems.
Cityflyer stopping ABZ flights was bad news for me and my BAEC tier points.

Pre-purchase of an over wing exit seat on EZY secures leg-room AND priority boarding... And a choice of hot (ok warm) catering if required on board.
The paid lounge at Gatwick is way ahead of GC at T5

Looking forward to comparing Ryanair business plus out and BA CE back to Warsaw in a couple of weeks. Got front row on Ryanair.

I live closer to LTN, making Easyjet an obvious option for domestic and short haul at the expense of TP/Avios (although my majority come from CW TATL flights. )

A bit of a game changer for me is the Easyjet allow moving to earlier same day flights if space allows. Great if I turn up at GLA early if meetings end early or traffic is light.

Low cost airlines are great but only if you live near one of their bases. They're no use to me when wanting to get to GLA from MAD. So with their vastly superior network and schedules it's BA all the way.

The bulk of the flying just care about getting from A to B and not about the flying experience. Price is the driving factor behind their choice.
What is a mainline airline going to do? Follow LCC on price or see planes flying empty?

People do weird things to save a few pounds. Leaving home a 4am to get a flight, travelling across town etc which I think is mad. Mind you I will drive a couple of miles out of my way to save a penny on petrol so…...

- It's still cheaper for London dwellers to get out to LHR via Tube than any of the expensive train journeys to the LCC hubs (e.g. Stansted at a ridiculous £30, LHR by tube is about £6 rtn).

- BA service short haul service is better than Ryanair which usually involve tired crews who sometimes aren't very friendly. I remember a flight a year or so ago in which I was flying to Krakow with Ryanair from STN. The CC at the front of the plane looked shattered and it was only 08:40 (I was on row 1). One of them had a convo with his counterpart at the back of the plane via phone and clearly didn't understand what they were saying, and had to call back to confirm. In an emergency I can't say I would be that confident in them.

- If you are left stranded in a remote Spanish airport (Like I was in Almeria by Ryanair), BA are more likely to look after you. I was told by Ryanair to rebook my flight online (didn't fancy standing at the back of a queue of 180 people at the Swissport desk). The next flight with availability was 3 weeks away. When I recently had a problem at Granada, BA got an an engineer from Malaga to fix the plane and laid on food, rather than cancel the service. Despite BA's recent obsession with cost cutting, on the balance of probabilities, BA are more likely to provide you with overnight accommodation than some of their LCC competitors, apart from maybe easy jet.

MAD-EDI on easyJet and take a tram/train (or indeed the direct bus to Buchanan Bus Station?). Can't take any longer in total than the LHR transfer?

BA wins for me

choice of 3 London airports LHR&LCY most importantly

Yes but that means hanging about MAD for 10 hours.

I refused to fly LCC after a couple of experiences with the Ryanair scrum and easy speedy boarding. It truly was a horrible experience. But now with allocated seating and some better catering and extra leg room seats (especially the Monarch model) I think the LCC offering can actually be better then BA Y.

I leave home at around 4am to get to Heathrow for early morning BA flights, and sometimes I save a few pounds by travelling across town to fly from LCY :D

As someone who flies from there regions, there's very little to differentiate between the cabin comfort on BA shorthaul/domestic and the LCCs, so my choice is based purely on destination availability, overall travel time, and price. Only if I particularly need the TPs would I also consider enduring connecting through London.

For me LGW has to be £30 cheaper and STN £80 cheaper even to consider them. But BA rarely gets my business because LH is usually significantly cheaper (I'm usually flying to Germany or the US), and its offering is very similar to BA's and the lounge much better.

If I'm flying GLA-LON, then BA often works out as cheap if not cheaper than the LCCs. Also don't have to deal with getting to/from STN or LTN. Having a little bit of status helps too with fast-track and lounge access very much tipping the scale in favour of BA.

as someone who doesn't normally fly with just hand baggage the LCC price often looks good but once the extras are added on it does not work out cheap enough to make me ditch BA

Same as BA then, both have HBO and baggage inclusive fares.

not the same at all I think you have missed the point

Explain the point.

EZY has fares that include no frills and has fares that include baggage, fast track, preferential seating, etc.

BA has fares that include no baggage, have to pay to select seat (assuming no status), etc

my main point is simple I have never found LCCs prices once all the extras have been added to be significantly cheaper than BA certainly not cheap enough for me to fly to an inconvenient airport

in fact in the past I have actually found a LCC to be more expensive than BA or in fact BMI when I was flying them

now many people may have found a different result but I can only speak from my own experience

That's so true. I've even had fares out of LCY cheaper than EZY from LTN (note: I'd never give LTN a serious consideration, the only LCC airport I consider is LGW). But for those who live near LTN and STN they'd consider EZY a more convenient option.

Then again I know people who won't even think of checking BA as they assume the LCCs are as cheap as it gets.

I thought the point was that you were saying that the price of the LCC was HBO but BA had the extras included which is no longer the case.

I'm a BA loyalist but on shorthaul, if it's not a route Cityflier flies, I now prefer Easyjet. Service is just as good if not better, punctuality in my experience is better in EZY, and I like the option of being able to buy something to eat rather than the no meal on most SH BA flights. Ryanair a different matter

The Flounge wins every time!

Edit. There are actually lots of reasons why I fly BA over the LCC's (and even other full service airlines):
- T5 and LCY
- Fast Track
- Lounges
- Decent carry on allowance
- Decent baggage allowance (despite aspiring to c-w-s' HBO lifestyle, I'm a long way off!)
- Generally pleasant and service driven crews and ground staff
- RFS tickets (Last minute LCC flights are usually very expensive)

I am proud to have never flown Ryanair, nor do I ever intend to.

I also do everything possible to avoid LTN (per one of our mod's handles).

EZY are generally ok, as long as you aren't committed to getting to your destination on time (or at all). But given the above list, I can't recall when I took my last flight with them (or needed to).

It's amazing how often I can book an RFS a day or two before departure. One time a short notice trip to AMS was arranged at the airport itself (I had just landed from PRG seen I needed to be in AMS, booked it online while walking to flight connections, saved me a small fortune and it was in CE).

Of course RFS doesn't enter in to the average persons evaluation of BA v LCCs.

I agree with most of your edited post but I will correct one misconception. EZY has better punctuality than BA (it's easier to be punctual when you're not using LHR as delays are more likely to happen at an airport running to capacity).

That said when BA are delayed you can relax with another glass of Taittinger in the Flounge :)

Although most of my flights have been on BA this year I've not had any serious delays or cancellations.

I generally agree with that when things run to schedule. However when things go bad, there's pretty much zero support with an LCC. With BA (and indeed other full service carriers), a seat on another flight or another airline is usually not an issue. With an LCC, it's bin the ticket (claim it back at some point in the future) and book a BA RFS...

I would have agreed if I hadn't heard how they were treated during the ash cloud issues. They were flying EZY and offered good quality (4*) accommodation until the first flight became available.

Of course that might just be a proactive outstation and not representative of EZY in general, but it did leave a good impression.

Rewind 5 years previous to that and I was in WAW and there was a bunch of people in the queue to board the LO flight to LHR complaining how EZY let them down, the flight was cancelled and the only flight that had space was in a few days time so they had to pay walk up fares on LOT to get home and get back to work. My response at the time was it makes sense to pay extra to fly a real airline who will look after you.

So I think EZY has improved over the years. I still think in general BA would look after you better, but things aren't as clear cut anymore. There's been some examples of BA allowing passengers to fend for themselves too:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...n-pax-vce.html is the one I can think of off the top of my head.

Couldn't agree more.
I live in Berlin and there are great offerings from SXF, to a huge number of destinations on direct flights (BA only offers LHR direct).
The "orange guys" have also got their service improved, much better than the "irish guys" with the harp on the tail - they are more likke the Conair film with Nicholas Cage: "Ryanair welcomes all prisoners on board"

Yet it seems BA's operations at LHR are substantially more on time than they are at LGW.

At LGW, 73.04% of BA flights departed within fifteen minutes of schedule. The mean delay was 15.44 minutes.
At LHR, 79.02% of BA flights departed within fifteen minutes of schedule. The mean delay was 12.21 minutes.

For comparison, U2 manages 78.68% and 11.75 minutes at LGW, roughly on par with BA at LHR, but much better than BA's operation at LGW.

For on time performance, LGW is the worst UK airport served by either BA or U2.

Figures from 2014 January to June, http://www.flightontime.info/ .

While every time I have flown with Ryan Air is has been a pretty horrible experience, EasyJet are pretty much on a par with BA for short haul (especially if you have paid for EasyJet+ to get priority boarding and advance seat selection). When choosing between BA and EasyJet is pretty much comes down to routes and times, prices will be largely similar.

As someone who only travels HBO, one thing that I would like to see, and that could persuade me to chose one airline over another, is for an airline to include free hold baggage, and to charge for using the overhead bins. Passengers that don't want to pay for an overhead bin can carry on a handbag or something to put under the seat in front. I know that you can use priority boarding with BA status (or CE), or EJ+ to board first, but one some flights it seems nearly 75% of the plane has priority boarding,

Nearly every flight I take seems to have far too many people taking on more hand baggage than they should, and then leaving the gate late as people walk around trying to find space for their carry on.

I wonder if business people in a hurry would pay more for overhead bin space than tourists would for hold luggage.....

Until a few years ago, the LCCs were almost always significantly cheaper than BA. They've however been getting steadily more expensive while BA has been getting cheaper and cheaper. Many people who travelled during that period will automatically assume that's still the case.

Not that the LCC's need to be "significantly cheaper" for the average leisure traveller with no interest in airmiles, no lounge access and no great desire to use Fast track or choose their seats. Or the majority of the country who live much closer to a regional airport with direct LCC flights to their destination.

And despite the gap closing, it's still pretty rare for me to find a BA flight cheaper than a LCC - particularly when I don't need to take a bag.

The main thing that keep me flying BA is LHR - it's by far my closest and most easily accessed airport (and T5 is the closest and easiest to access bit of LHR). Any airline that isn't flying out of LHR is going to have to be substantially cheaper than BA before I consider flying them. Throw in the savings from BA flights + hotel deals and it becomes even harder for other carriers (even if they do fly out of LHR) to get my business.

Be interesting to see what the median and range of times is for each carrier (and level of cancellations). It can be estimated from the CAA data, but don't have time for that at the moment.

It's a nice idea, but baggage handlers cost money whereas passengers don't.

Monarch's 'extra' package includes extra leg room seats and is generally cheaper than CE and may offer a better product now too. You can generally buy 3 seats for the cost of 2 in CE if you're desperate for that empty middle seat too!

I recently priced up TFS and its either £880 direct on ZB or £1240 with an LHR//LGW change included… not a difficult choice really for a family of 3!