If the movies advertised free food then yes. Also, if other cinemas were showing the same films and offering free food then you might go to those other cinemas.

Shocking in this case, considering until the day BA decided to charge for food, they aggressively marketed free food and drinks as part of the product they were selling. :D:rolleyes:@:-)

As expected, people are referring to the fact that BA sold (what is probably) a small number of tickets promising that the passengers would receive some sort of complimentary in-flight service. The fact that BA did not make an exception for people who bought their tickets before a ceretain day is bad. I agree. However, my comment was more about going forward. This thread is about how BoB is a bad thing in general not about how BA misrepresented what people can expect onboard for a few months. It has been a few months now since BA announced the change, and all those who bought the tickets after the announcement should know perfectly well what to expect.

Since it's inception BA has provided free drinks and food in Y. The vast majority of Y fliers would have no reason to think BA which has long marketed itself as a 'full-service airline' would change

Is BA advertising the new BOB policy?

I don't see anything about it on the U.S. homepage of BA.com

On BA.com, it does mention BOB when booking a ticket.

On Expedia, it only mentions it if you click on a secondary link.

They're not hiding it - but I imagine many people will not have noticed, particularly if they are connecting from long-haul flights.

From the website it doesn't seem like they are trying to call attention to it. In fact, there is an alert at the top of the homepage "Changes to baggage policies and optional extras" which leads to "Additional baggage allowance between London and Tokyo. For flights purchased from 1 July 2016, the checked baggage allowance for customers flying in World Traveller between London and Tokyo (Narita and Haneda) will increase from one to two pieces."

I still believe that the vast majority of passengers do not care, nor do they even know what 'full service' meant at the time of BA's creation. Especially, since a good proportion of them could not have afforded the prices that BA used to charge at that time. Air travel in economy has been transformed by low cost airlines and fierce competition. I really do not understand why people who want to pay a premium to eat and drink on the plane cannot pay that premium on the plane rather than have it included into the price of the ticket. If I don't usually eat when I fly shorthaul, why should I pay for it? And, given that I pay 100-200 Dollars less than I used to, I would rather pay the 20 when and if I want to drink or eat something then go back to the days of regulated and expensive air travel.

The point I was responding to wasn't about people "do not care" but addressing your comment that customers "should know perfectly well what to expect."

And by the way, from BA's current website, "About British Airways: British Airways is a full service global airline, offering year-round low fares with an extensive global route network flying to and from centrally-located airports."


I have no problem with BA going to BOB for Y in Europe. I would have thought they might have made exceptions for GGL or GC or OW Emerald.

I think the strong reaction here is because this isn't a stand alone cut - it is one of many big and small cuts across all cabins, and more than cuts, planes that seem held together by tape, dirty cabins, and the safety flubs here and there.

If BA had been keeping up its hard and soft product in the premium cabins, I think most of the folks here probably would have defended BOB.

Those of us purchasing tickets from the UK regions are paying considerably more than we used to for our long haul trips in J and F. Complementary refreshments are part of that fare, you may pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars less for your tickets and enjoy Club Europe to connect to your long haul. We on the other hand get to travel domestic economy for significantly more and now we have to pay for water or other refreshment.

The penny pinching is not just BOB, it's happening throughout the airline and, from my perspective, it's gone too far. It may be good value for you on cheap foreign tickets but those of us paying ever increasing U.K. prices we are certainly not enjoying value.

I understand your point, however, free food and drinks is not a perk of being a GCH. I would love for it to be one but it is not something that we're getting. U.S. based airlines provide that perk because their top elites do not get lounge access when traveling domestically, while BA's do. IB does not do it while AY does. Perhaps BA thinks that it has other strong reasons for people to choose to fly with it. As I mentioned before, people who want to pay the premium are very welcome to pay it on board without forcing the rest of us to have the cost of food and drink included into the price when we do not want it.

This thread is about BoB on short haul flights in economy. Those connecting from U.K. regions will be traveling in the Club cabin from March. I do not see a problem here. And, no, I do not pay a few thousand Dollars less to fly Club or First from Kiev. And, quite honestly, I cannot agree that prices from the regions have increased in economy.

I believe DMs on DL get free Sky Club membership - for AA and UA, many of their top level fliers have affinity credit cards that give lounge access.

My only point was it would have been an easy way for BA to mitigate dissatisfaction w the new policy - and as Tobias-UK points out you statements about lower fares are market specific.

You say, "Perhaps BA thinks that it has other strong reasons for people to choose to fly with it."

BA management's business strategy is "show me the f*****g money" as articulated by the parent company CEO. Their ability to execute this is based not on innovations, high levels of service, great value or flawless execution, but a dominant position on what is essentially a public utility called Heathrow Airport.

And BA have publicly stated that prices will not be lowered as a result of the introduction of BOB.

Good point. However, I think that a company would want to mitigate something if it saw the need to do so. Obviously, the prevailing opinion on this forum is that BA is tarnishing its brand with the introduction of BoB and not providing something for GCHs and OW EMDs. I am also a GCH and I do not see a problem with the forthcoming change. I may be in the minority here, but we do not know how other passengers feel about the change - they may very well not care at all as well.

What I meant was that a lot of emphasis is made here on the free food and drink as if they were the only differentianing factor between airlines. The schedule, airports, frequency also play a role. I mentioned in many threads that when I need to go to London I often use the more expensive BoB PS than the still 'full service' BA because the former' schedule suits me better, and even my gold card can't sway me towards flying BA. I know that it is only one route but BA is losing the competition to a more expensive no frills airline, so this can be taken as a proof that people do not necessarily fly for the experience. I am not denying that there are people who choose which airline to fly with based on the frills, but while I am in the minority (or a sole crazy person) here, these frills seeking people may be in the minority in the real world.

I maintain the view that the introduction of BoB is the result of the prices having fallen so low, so I do not think that they need to fall even lower (I won't mind if they do though). BA is not doing it to lower the prices. BA is doing it because prices have fallen so low that the same product cannot be maintained. You and many others obviously disagree.

But again, as mentioned by Tobias UK does is not in the least what is happening and the fact that you think this is a result of airfares falling over decades changes absolutely nothing to that, especially as BA are withdrawing perks without lowering fares at a time they are still profitable which suggests that the previous system was sustainable.

So just like you not understanding passengers' reaction, I honestly cannot understand why people would be happy to get less for the same price, which is exactly what is happening.

For what it's worth I also do not share your perception BA are withdrawing perks because fares have gone down, and i think that if there is a relevance of lcc's it is more along the lines you rightly mentioned earlier (if not in those words) that LCCs have now got away with only offering transportation plus increasing ancillary revenues for year so maybe we can get away with it too. As discussed earlier I personally think that whether this will work or not remains to be seen.

incidentally, I agree with you that the question of transition, whilst mishandled by BA, is minor and not what this is mostly about.

By by contrast I disagree with your and Littlegirl's point which sort of makes it sound people are rather ridiculous for wanting inclusions with their full service airline plane ticket. The fact people primarily buy transportation does not imply they only buy that, in just the same way that if you buy a night in a b&b you predominantly buy overnight accommodation, the establishment also boasted about the great breakfast they offer and if they suddenly charge for it because many hotels do that might change the value of the proposition for you regardless of whether you still decide to go there or not. So yes of course hotels could now start charging separately for bathroom use, or for the internet (what, do you also expect free wifi when you go to the hairdressers? Can't you buy your own? ;) ) or for using the gym (do you also expect restaurants to offer a free gym? People pay membership home to go to one so why not here, I'm starting to worry about people! :D ).

I think it is rather pointless, however, (and to clarify this is a generic point, not directed to you) to make unhappy passengers sound as if they were some sort of unreasonable spoilt brats who should just go bother another airline when they are unhappy that they used to get a+b+c for £100 five year ago, then a+b two years ago and now only a. If BA can get away with it then that's honestly great for them, if not, the employees and the passengers will pay a further price while the big managers will have safely moved on and so be it too, but it would be quite extraordinary if the airline industry was the only one where people were expected to get less for the same amount of money at the individual level without the right to express dissatisfaction.

BoB just represents another step in the hollowing out of the short haul ET product - uncomfortable seats, no papers at outstations, shrunken legroom, removal of the hot meal on band 4, enhanced lavatory queues. I think people react badly when something is removed, but removing and making them pay for the replacement feels a painful tweak of the nose. The overall package of changes has made a once relatively price insensitive BA customer very aware of other options. As a result I have just one BA shorthaul booking in 2017 and that's an RFS.

After a week where I've separately had a 24 hour technical delay and also been shunted off the UD and dumped in a LD seat with the extra legroom seats blocked, not feeling too warm and fluffy about BA.

I'm going to pitch in since it seems to be a "let's beat up Andriyko" thread! Or at least his perfectly reasonable opinions.

I'm mainly affected on the domestic legs since I'm often (but not always) CE thereafter, and on balance I would have preferred that BA not go down this route. I am lucky in that there are very good lounges at the relevant airports. Personally I would have preferred them to have come up with some clever idea - I don't know what it is - which would have been innovative and different to other airlines. Though BA's version of BOB has some interesting touches, basically it's the same as Brussels Airline / Aer Lingus / Vueling.

However, I am certainly less vituperative about this compared to some others in this thread and I think it's not a bad idea to give it a go and see what happens. I have plenty of BA shorthaul bookings coming up, over 100 I would guess, and I can't see that changing.

Incidentally the argument against this I find most persuasive is the one headingwest expressed to me over a coffee (paid for!) in Bratislava: the free offering is part of the "welcome aboard, great to see you" hospitality pitch, which will be difficult to replace or do differently.

So pragmatically I shall watch and see how it works out on the day, I shall give it a go myself, and then reach a considered opinion. The routes to watch are the LHR and LCY routes where there is real competition: FRA, GVA, CDG, EDI, VIE, Italy. I don't quite get this "once gone, the customers won't easily come back" idea, on shorthaul it's so price sensitive that there's nothing that a few weeks of price cutting and rebranding won't solve. And BA have probably the best mailing list in the industry.

That is merely an empirical fact, repeated over and again by the airlines that have 'been there' such as LX, or are still trying - such as AF and AZ. For one of those I actually saw the figures and they were telling.

The fact that a market is price sensitive does not imply that it is fully elastic, far from it, and in many ways, BA has been benefitting from that for years. People do build loyalties, corporate contracts and policies (two different but equally important things) and reputational factors have been well-evidenced to play a significant role in purchase habits in both air travel and other industries, and is also well evidenced not to be symmetric (ie it does take much longer to build up a reputation than to break it down).