navylad

Sorry, not trying to put any words in anyone's mouth, but thanks to the clarification and glad to learn that you weren't trying to stop people making constructive comments despite what were IMHO pointless accusations.

And just for the record, I read your post as saying something was irrelevant when you had said 'Actually No' quoting someone saying it was relevant. Sorry if that is not what you meant.

nallison

I believe it is clear they were refuting the statement that 'the truthfulness of skytrax is the very subject of this thread'.

I am puzzled that some refuse to accept any evidence of decline in BA. We had similar attempts to deflect with the glass door ratings.

Now if this were some kind of outlier those refusing to accept the ratings may have a point, but if you consider it in the context of the trends of opinion on this forum, media coverage and complaints published in the media, staff feedback, TripAdvisor reviews, the unanimous opinion is consistent across all media. Indeed it is BAs policy to reduce costs by reducing service, why is anyone surprised when their customers notice that? And what do you think think is special about BA that means their review scores are lower than competitors subject to the same system, that isn't explained by them being, you know, worse? KLM are ranked higher because certainly in economy at least, they are better. And the majority of people travel in economy.

It's like saying labour are going to win a majority today. Now I may very much wish that were the case, but I have to accept that the evidence isn't on my side, and people probably won't take me very seriously. There is enough evidence that those denying decline in BA are going to have to explain how they rationally come to that conclusion.

BA6948

I am also very puzzled because some years ago BA used to have great ratings on skytrax and some were saying BA was overrated.

BA's service has declined in all cabins and it is not as if it is not a fact. It is a strategy by the management. BA can't be in the same league as AF, LH, KL TK or A3. Take a look at A3, do you think they are overrated? Most of their reviews are positive and reflect the better quality of service they provide.

elitetraveler

Part of management's 'ability' to let service standards and innovation decline and still boost profits is A) milking the very high brand reputation BA built in the late 80s and into the early part of this century's first decade and B) the huge premium O&D market at LHR.

TK and KL, for example, have to rely heavily on connecting traffic - so they have to provide a better experience than alternate connections. Same with LH and AF to a lesser degree. I don't have the stat anymore - but LHR has something like 10x more premium TATL O&D traffic over the second place airport which I think is CDG.

rossmacd

I actually think it is Stockholm syndrome for some people.

IAN-UK

BA decided to spend some of its brand premium to enhance profitability. The premium had been built up over years and represented an irreplaceable asset: so it was a risky move.

Hardly surprising that reviews have drifted lower.

I'm guessing strategists in BA were banking on the robustness of its brand, but the scale and scope of the sell-off has been reckless. Short-term, the benefits are obvious: but erosion of market share and/or average revenues looks likely.

The current crew will be long gone before those birds come home to roost

IAN-UK

The other Scandinavian allusion is Canute, holding back the tide of changing opinion

elitetraveler

I also think the playing field changed from when WW became CEO in 2005 -- back then, nobody thought Ryanair or easyJet would improve their product enough that it would be competitive with BA.

The U.S. airlines were a shambles and the common wisdom is there was no quality competition coming across the pond from the U.S.

There was no A380 that EK had decked out in lounges. EK was considered good but it still had slanty J seats - QR and EY were much, much smaller.

BA as mentioned above benefits from LHR's huge base of premium O&D traffic --

I reckon management in 2005 didn't see a huge danger in getting BA's financials back in order at the expense of cutting back on investments, innovation, and the overall product - after all, they were facing all of the above, plus getting the cover of T5 as a huge move forward.

And it actually all worked OK until about 3-5 years ago -- EK, EY and QR kept growing -- Ryanair and easyJet got much better as did the U.S. carriers - and all of a sudden, BA was not looking so shiny anymore.

ahmetdouas

Ok but it seems that BA has by far the most 'reviews' on Skytrax so that means many people are having a negative experience!

navylad

As I had already apologised for mis-interpretting what they had said, you comment isn't really helpful. I also haven't seen anyone 'refusing to accept evidence of decline in BA', just discussing that Skytrax isn't a useful resource, when BA had a 4 star rating it was just as useless a resource.

Feel free to have a discussion about the 'declining standards of BA' as much as you like, I find the repetitive nature of such posts rather boring and not particularly helpful for what I use FT for; to find out about rules and regulations to maximise my use of an airline I use and to discover new offers. Please don't make any assumption that because someone doesn't contribute to what you wish to discuss that they either agree nor disagree with you.