CHCflyer

There is nothing to stop Easy and Ryan entering the London market now. There are some slots left (awful times of the day), but the fact that they never entered this market is twofold:
- they wanted to put some distance between themselves and BA - traditionally, very leisure-orientated routes did fairly badly out of LHR (BMI tried Tenerife, for example and failed)
- LHR imposes costs on an airline that the airline cannot control. Slot limitations make decent aircraft utilization tough and there are long taxi times, too. Additionally, I doubt that you can turn around a plane for the sub-GBP1,000 that the LCC's require at LHR.

Whilst BA is somewhat protected by these obstacles, it is also locked into a business model that can never compete of price with the other two. BA knows that the comparison is impossible until there is a new runway at LHR.

This is all about securing more revenues to satisfy shareholders and maintain investment grade status as an airline share.

BA will not jeopardise any revenue streams and will seek new forms of income. Here is Australia and NZ you can pay to enter lounges, for example on a subscription basis. Clear out the silvers and get them to buy a BA Exec Club subscription (like it used to be in the 1980's). They offer a couple of passes to silvers to tempt them to buy. Permit other airlines' silver members to enter as they can bill the reciprocating airline.

IAN-UK

Well, yes: but the cost of acquiring those awkwardly timed slots is a very effective barrier to entry.

Compound this with Heathrow's landing-charge penalty on smaller aircraft (AKA as an incentive for operators of larger planes), and passenger fees which start at just under Ł30 a pop, and you have a pretty indigestible package for the LCC to swallow.

BA of course has the advantage of being slot-happy, on the sunny side of entry barriers: and it can offset the high cost of operating narrow-bodies from Heathrow with the network contribution these bring to the airline.

A point-to-point LCC would be in a much less happy position.

LTN Phobia

My feeling is that easyJet and Ryanair would have done it already if they felt it could work.

The fact they haven't says something, perhaps.

It may be a different proposition if an additional runway is built but then, you never know with LHR they might put the PSC up to Ł50 pp

Whatever we say, if easyjet or Ryanair operated from LHR I doubt they could offer remotely a similar level of "fare" as they do from STN or LTN - the costs at LHR are rather high.

*"Fare" as most members of the general public perceive it, i.e. the overall ticket price

orbitmic

Indeed. Additionally, still for costs reason, an LCC will always prefer airports where they can fly a lot of flights than just a few, and, say, U2 couldn't get the volume at LHR that they do at LGW which is still reasonably convenient to many. I personally do not see them change any time soon and if the elusive airport expansion ever comes through they'll be moved for free anyway.

simons1

Their business model is based around scale. There is no way they would enter LHR with a few random slots at bad times.

I'm sure they will stick to a business model that works.

Silver Fox

From my point of view I would likely have been caught out by this because in my head BA has always been a full service airline, not a LCC. I just would not have bothered to read the small print and would have flown because it was BA and convenient-ish. Yes I know you should always read the fine print but I probably just wouldn't because of all the "To Fly, To serve" marketing. I wonder how many people will assume the same, book, and go away with an exceptionally bad taste in their mouth about this.

You've all been Cruzified by the Cruzifier!

FlyerTalker688786

I accept your argument. However, I think the point if not about profitability. As I explained somewhere else, BA has to allow some unprofitable part of business in order to make a profit. Plus as I have posted on how much other airlines charge BOB, it is obvious that BA took the Iberia approach. I think there are two arguments can be made:
1>, BOB could not necessarily make BA more profitable. For example, who pays for the unsold food? And ultimately, how many passengers BA is going to loose since now BA is no different from other LCC. And how many long haul connection passengers BA is to loose to Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Emirates alike which provides full service in every sector they fly?
2>, BA could have offered free water and coffee/tea as minimum. That would not significantly impact the bottom line, but still keep majority reasonably happy.

Jonathan1974

If possible my colleagues and I have avoided Ba since they started bringing in substandard cabin crews ( paid despicable wages) and constantly making the product in all classes deteriorate. We will now just not use BA in Europe at all but will switch to Easyjet where the staff is not demoralised and does not hAte the management.
1) BA meal services have not been 'free'. By making them gradually all but disappear over the past two years anyway ( under-catering, lying, lying, lying) under the Walch Cruz regime of mismanagement, while prices have been going up rather than down, the revenue has been channelled into management salAry increments and huge bonuses.
2) lying has become the norm in BA publicity
3) as BA is the flagship carrier of the UK, and its mismanagement and destruction by two hostile men ( walch and cruz) is severely detrimental to our national interests, these two people should be sacked. is BA to become the next Air Lingus and Iberia-- both essentially on the level of ( or below) low cost carriers?
4) US courts are studying the case of selling tickets until a few days ago for close to a year ahead, promising meals and snacks plus a full hot, cold, alcoholic beverage service, and now attempting to lie the way out of honouring the condition of the sale.

MeltingAlf

I am seriously hoping this becomes such a bad fiasco and that courts both UK and US gets involved + BA reputation damaged.

Probably the only way to get IAG to kick Cruz out, who has frankly been absolutely horrid in running both Vueling and BA.

Flexible preferences

But tea and coffee would be by far one of the biggest sellers and costs BA next to nothing. Massive margins and very profitable. My guess is bottled water would also sell well and be quite profitable. Giving these for free would hugely affect the bottom line for BoB.

allturnleft

We are all hypothesising what this latest downgrade to BA will do to bookings

Out of interest I tried to make a dummy booking with LH to Kiev in business

It was cheaper than BA and allowed seat selection prior to confirming booking and with no charge! I know their european business product is better than BA

I wonder how many sales BA loses through priced seat selection?

As others have said its the accumulation of changes over the last couple of years which may have finally crossed a line

orbitmic

+1. Besides, I'll admit that I do not really see the point of all the "BA could have x". They could have done anything. Kept the current offer, upgrade it, remove alcohol, remove any food beyond birdseed, introduce BoB but exempt status pax and/or full fare pax and/or connecting pax and/or some products etc., or they could do what they have which is remove all free offering and replace by a fully paid for offering.

It is not as though one option would have been "obvious" or fair or whatever, they were just all different choices and management have gone for what they think will enable them to self-award the largest possible bonus. If we, as passengers, are unhappy, we can 1) shut up and live with it, 2) boycott BA, 3) complain to BA to waste customer service time, 4), engage in whatever protest activity makes us happy from wearing "I hate BA" t-shirts on flights to recommending to friends and family that they choose other airlines, 5) my own personal solution which is not to boycott BA or anything that dramatic, but redistribute my flying with less BA and more others, notably targeting not just the cheap short haul sectors but the most profitable ones that I do, ie long haul J flights and so on.

londonba2014

I often find if I go down the galley and ask for another drink, the crew are incredibly friendly about it and then often keep you topped up for the rest of the flight..

Padmeister

Despite what BA have done here for every person they lose they will gain a new punter for whatever reason. BA'S aircraft will still be packed in all cabins across all flights you can guarantee it. Aircraft sitting on the tarmac with no passengers on it and not willing to fly with BA is not going to happen I highly doubt it anyway.

orbitmic

Ah, you are still doing the "guarantee" thing I see!

Incidentally, that is actually a rather moot point: if the goal was to fill plane, everyone could do that: some airlines and services have gone bankrupt with loads near 100%. The difficulty relates to yields rather than loads.

If, as I presume you suggest, you can guarantee that BA will be able to continue filling planes with similar or higher yields as now and reduce costs, then it's great for them. They have nothing to worry about, can safely ignore the passengers who claim to be disgruntled, and in fact press ahead with faster and more radical continued product deterioration in all classes of service. The only mystery questions become why they have not done it earlier (frankly, if BA never had anything to gain from offering free drinks and food in the first place, I really do wonder why on earth they did for so long) and why other European legacy carriers have not done it either. They must have all had pretty wasteful managers.