Club Europe to be introduced on UK domestic flights [launches 01 April 2017]
Mar 31, 17, 6:50 pm - Wikipost
|
|||
|
|||
|
Dec 29, 16, 11:14 pm
#151
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: glasgow, scotland
Programs: BA Executive Club Gold
Posts: 219
Forgive me if this has been covered already, but have we considered the impact of 'Domestic Club' on capacity???
GLA/EDI to LHR and VV often run very full, even with an A321 hence the 767 was introduced to meet capacity, but these are going very soon.
Given that GLA/ABZ/EDI flights may run with a huge club cabin, with a high number of F/J transfer pax and full fare ticket holders, would this not translate as a bit of a disaster if all the middle seats fly empty/blocked?
Particularly, for all the Scottish BA cabin crew/flight crew who struggle to find space to commute to work on the shuttles already, especially after the demise of BMI
GLA/EDI to LHR and VV often run very full, even with an A321 hence the 767 was introduced to meet capacity, but these are going very soon.
Given that GLA/ABZ/EDI flights may run with a huge club cabin, with a high number of F/J transfer pax and full fare ticket holders, would this not translate as a bit of a disaster if all the middle seats fly empty/blocked?
Particularly, for all the Scottish BA cabin crew/flight crew who struggle to find space to commute to work on the shuttles already, especially after the demise of BMI
Dec 30, 16, 12:43 am
#152
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 47,688
Originally Posted by flyingscotsman
Forgive me if this has been covered already, but have we considered the impact of 'Domestic Club' on capacity???
Now in theory the loss of seats could be quite small. Even on flights that look completely full there could easily be a few empty seats at the back, so with just 3 rows of CE this would just amount to moving the seats to the front. But as you say, staff standby, at peak time, is going to be tricky. GLA and EDI shouldn't be so bad, there is always LGW and LCY, and there are so many off peak services that staff will just have to wait a few hours, but that can't be said of ABZ, NCL and MAN, and the latter has a lot of staff travel.
On the other hand, at the moment these are the flights that are most impacted by excess hand baggage during winter months, so another view is that by introducing Club Europe BA is reducing the passenger load to something more balanced for the aircraft's configuration.
Dec 30, 16, 12:47 am
#153
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Switzerland
Programs: BA Gold, Hilton Honors Diamond, Nordic Choice Hotels Silver, Avis Preferred Plus
Posts: 4,934
I was just thinking that the densification of A320/321 also helps increasing capacity. This of course would not only apply for busy domestic flights, but shorthaul in general.
Dec 30, 16, 12:57 pm
#154
FlyerTalk Evangelist & Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: London
Posts: 16,814
Originally Posted by navylad
Do we think the MAN-BRE flights will also go to 2 tier?
Originally Posted by Worcester
Don't know for sure but this is run by Sun Air as a franchise and as such is not part of Cruz's writ. They run their own business and make their own decisions, if they have not offered a Club Europe yet I doubt this will change things.
I don't believe that Sun-Air or Comair plan to introduce buy on board either.
In fact I don't really know Sun-Air pretend to be BA, and perhaps the relationship will be strained if Cruz wants more money out of them in exchange for the reduced-value brand he will now provide.
Originally Posted by flyingscotsman
Given that GLA/ABZ/EDI flights may run with a huge club cabin, with a high number of F/J transfer pax and full fare ticket holders, would this not translate as a bit of a disaster if all the middle seats fly empty/blocked?
Dec 30, 16, 3:07 pm
#155
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Scotland
Posts: 68
Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
See a similar answer in post 132 above, it may be you currently have the A321 midhaul aircraft and as a Silver you aren't getting further forward at the moment. The aircraft could well change before then anyway, if the service fills up it's not the most efficient aircraft for this service.
Dec 31, 16, 8:38 am
#157
Ambassador, British Airways; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Leeds, UK
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL, HH Diamond
Posts: 31,018
Originally Posted by mmxbreaks
Lounges are going to suffer as a result.
Not sure it's a great idea for 45min flights.
Useful for TP runs though.
Not sure it's a great idea for 45min flights.
Useful for TP runs though.
Why would a Club Europe cabin on domestic flights have much impact on lounge usage?
Dec 31, 16, 9:43 am
#158
FlyerTalk Evangelist & Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: London
Posts: 16,814
Originally Posted by mmxbreaks
Lounges are going to suffer as a result.
Not sure it's a great idea for 45min flights.
Useful for TP runs though.
Not sure it's a great idea for 45min flights.
Useful for TP runs though.
CE works well enough on LGW-JER or LHR-BRU so don't see why longer flights like LHR-INV or LHR-EDI should go without.
Dec 31, 16, 1:29 pm
#159
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Lewes
Programs: HiltonH. Gold Starwood Gold BA BLUES! Mucci.
Posts: 4,800
Well all the original shuttle routes were badged as class of service 'C' irrespective of fare paid or booking class, and this still appears on the boarding pass, it is just that the onboard service and crew staffing levels have dropped.
Back in the day Club did not have an empty middle seat either....
some B757s ( Belvoir Castle was one) were adapted for shuttle flights with an extra 20 seats or so compared to regular 757s - There was no problem serving 185 hot breakfasts or hot evening meals back in the day.....
A lot has changed since then of course but I do wonder about the potential loss of capacity.....
Back in the day Club did not have an empty middle seat either....
some B757s ( Belvoir Castle was one) were adapted for shuttle flights with an extra 20 seats or so compared to regular 757s - There was no problem serving 185 hot breakfasts or hot evening meals back in the day.....
A lot has changed since then of course but I do wonder about the potential loss of capacity.....
Dec 31, 16, 1:40 pm
#161
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Brexile in ADB
Programs: BA, TK, HHonours, Le Club, Best Western Rewards
Posts: 7,065
Originally Posted by MarkFlies
Will it definitely happen?
Maybe they're waiting to see if they get lots of complaints from Club and First connectors about having to pay for drinks. If they don't, happy days, leave it as it is.
Maybe they're waiting to see if they get lots of complaints from Club and First connectors about having to pay for drinks. If they don't, happy days, leave it as it is.
Dec 31, 16, 1:57 pm
#162
FlyerTalk Evangelist & Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: London
Posts: 16,814
From the 2016 shareholders meeting:
Alex Cruz: In Club, as I was mentioning to you before, we are not just investing in Club World, as I was saying, but we are going to reintroduce Club in domestic flights. We believe that there is an opportunity to serve many of our customers which today are either point to point from Heathrow but also connecting on longer-haul flight. We will be reintroducing Club class in domestic flights next year.
Subsequent questions:Alexia Dogani (Goldman Sachs): Thank you. I also had three questions. Just firstly, I am interested in the comments Alex made about their investment in Club in the domestic BA network. I remember a couple of years ago, I think Willie you said that you felt that there was a bit of structural change in the premium cabin in Europe. Do you still feel the same?
[...]
Willie Walsh: Okay. It is like premium short-haul. It was funny. Again, I was looking at the slide there is that we are going to extend Club Europe to UK Domestic. I thought that is funny we have a note to leave Europe and we are going to take the UK Domestic market Club Europe. We are going to call it Club Brexit or something like that.
I do not think I was wrong. The levels of demand for the premium product in short-haul are structurally lower than it was historically. I do not whether it has bottomed out. It has probably recovered a little from where it went to. You got to remember though that there is a big difference in the yield we are getting to what we historically got. It is not just the combination. It is the combination of the demand and the yield. There is still definitely a case which is what I have always felt for BA to retain that product. That has been proven. We have said that overtime. I think with Aer Lingus when I was there, it was not a decision that I took when I was at Aer Lingus to remove the premium short-haul product. It was clear that the trends in Ireland were very different and that the demand was going to disappear.
I don’t know, Stephen, whether you want to comment on that from an Aer Lingus point of view. I think BA, because of the market of which it operates at Heathrow, there will always be sufficient demand to justify the product. The volumes that we have seen, they are much more price sensitive than it would have been historically. Therefore, it is not something that there is going to be huge investment in.
Stephen Kavanagh: [Here I believe speaking about Aer Lingus] Just to confirm that, we do not have that level of absolute demand that justified the reinstatement of a cabin, but what we are looking is something that Vueling has done with the seat free in the first number of rows. It is a proxy for a cabin but without for us the complexity or the cost, and the yield expectations are moderate in that regards. I think it is a case of cutting one’s cloth. What is appropriate for BA is obviously a different demand environment in the London market. I can see, obviously, with flow onto long-haul services, consistency in business product, is of real value. That is just not appropriate for the Aer Lingus market. We are looking to differentiate and segment just in different ways.
The transcript is at the following memorable URI: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...55959849748487
[...]
Willie Walsh: Okay. It is like premium short-haul. It was funny. Again, I was looking at the slide there is that we are going to extend Club Europe to UK Domestic. I thought that is funny we have a note to leave Europe and we are going to take the UK Domestic market Club Europe. We are going to call it Club Brexit or something like that.
I do not think I was wrong. The levels of demand for the premium product in short-haul are structurally lower than it was historically. I do not whether it has bottomed out. It has probably recovered a little from where it went to. You got to remember though that there is a big difference in the yield we are getting to what we historically got. It is not just the combination. It is the combination of the demand and the yield. There is still definitely a case which is what I have always felt for BA to retain that product. That has been proven. We have said that overtime. I think with Aer Lingus when I was there, it was not a decision that I took when I was at Aer Lingus to remove the premium short-haul product. It was clear that the trends in Ireland were very different and that the demand was going to disappear.
I don’t know, Stephen, whether you want to comment on that from an Aer Lingus point of view. I think BA, because of the market of which it operates at Heathrow, there will always be sufficient demand to justify the product. The volumes that we have seen, they are much more price sensitive than it would have been historically. Therefore, it is not something that there is going to be huge investment in.
Stephen Kavanagh: [Here I believe speaking about Aer Lingus] Just to confirm that, we do not have that level of absolute demand that justified the reinstatement of a cabin, but what we are looking is something that Vueling has done with the seat free in the first number of rows. It is a proxy for a cabin but without for us the complexity or the cost, and the yield expectations are moderate in that regards. I think it is a case of cutting one’s cloth. What is appropriate for BA is obviously a different demand environment in the London market. I can see, obviously, with flow onto long-haul services, consistency in business product, is of real value. That is just not appropriate for the Aer Lingus market. We are looking to differentiate and segment just in different ways.
Last edited by Calchas; Dec 31, 16 at 2:04 pm
Jan 4, 17, 9:12 am
#165
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: BRS
Programs: BA Ex Club Silver, IHG Spire Elite, Hilton Diamond, Avis Presidents Circle
Posts: 249
Hi Everyone,
I'm curious as to what might happen in my scenario, and wondered what your thoughts were - I am looking to book a flight from EDI to LHR at the beginning of April and have the option of either paying cash or avios on the preferred flight. I have just done a dummy booking and it looks like a mid-haul a321 has been rostered as the front CW cabin is available to me to select seats. This would be nice as I would be travelling with someone for who a proper business class style seat would be something that they would not normally experience. My concern though is that if I book and select the seats now, and BA subsequently introduce Domestic CE before the flight, will we be booted out? Would method of payment have any affect on this? I am pondering that any introduction wouldn't happen before Easter as it doesn't give them very long to market the new service etc and to get punters sucked in? Any thoughts?
Cheers
Sheppy
I'm curious as to what might happen in my scenario, and wondered what your thoughts were - I am looking to book a flight from EDI to LHR at the beginning of April and have the option of either paying cash or avios on the preferred flight. I have just done a dummy booking and it looks like a mid-haul a321 has been rostered as the front CW cabin is available to me to select seats. This would be nice as I would be travelling with someone for who a proper business class style seat would be something that they would not normally experience. My concern though is that if I book and select the seats now, and BA subsequently introduce Domestic CE before the flight, will we be booted out? Would method of payment have any affect on this? I am pondering that any introduction wouldn't happen before Easter as it doesn't give them very long to market the new service etc and to get punters sucked in? Any thoughts?
Cheers
Sheppy
