HIDDY

I thought those generous souls had stopped flying up front years ago, well before BoB came on the scene. I was led to believe by the FT journalists in order to save money their employers were forcing them to fly low cost airlines instead.

ahmetdouas

thats like saying low cost airlines don’t work! The person up front doesn’t exist on FR do they? It’s more like last minute ticket holders who have to fly urgently pay more! And they will fly whatever the cost so will not be driven away!

T8191

Neither I, nor probably anyone here, has a clue how the detailed cost-equations work out between Economy and Premium cabins, in their multiple fare-buckets. Only BA Revenue Management know that.

Suffice it to say, if I/we are subsidising those in W/Y, so be it. Perhaps that's a degree of social levelling?

BUT ... I still expect to receive something resembling Value For Money when flying CE and certainly in CW. IMO, BA doesn't deliver that to us ... and that's the ripping point.

simons1

I am not being obtuse, I am saying the value is zero. I would not pay anything for it all the time I can get it for free.

Of course if you are asking the question assuming Emirates introduced charging such that BA could deliver an equal or better proposition how much would you pay? The answer is still zero because by the time BA gets there it will be a commodity. I used to stay in hotels around ME&A that charged for wifi because they could but now it's the exception and I can't remember the last time I paid a penny.

simons1

I don't really buy that argument. The two mutually support each other. If there were no economy travellers travel would not exist in the same way.

It may seem that premium cabin travellers are the bees knees but few all business airlines have survived, even with smaller aircraft (eg CW LCY has shrunk). On the other hand there are plenty of successful all economy airlines.

nallison

Erm, that's a complete myth. You think the little club Europe cabin is paying for the entire flight? If 140 pax at the back were being subsidised BA would essentially be some kind of social support programme.

I believe in long haul WT+ makes the most money per square foot. First class the least and is often loss making but maintained as an important part of establishing the brand image, and keeping high value customers. I do hope you are grateful for the guys at the back subsidising you

Sealink

Wasn't BA Connect an attempt to do that?

BahrainLad

Low cost airlines do not fly from Heathrow. Low cost airlines do not have cabin crew who've been flying for 25 years. Low cost airlines do not have enormous pension deficits.

Do do you really think a passenger paying a fare component of £1 is not being subsidised by a passenger some place else? Do you know what the minimum ticket price BA needs to charge from LHR, excluding taxes, in order to make a profit?

BA could not survive in its current form without premium passengers. If they leave, or their yields reduce, the future isn't rosy.

Cap'n Benj

I get your point, so I will reconfigure my question to stop you from weedling out of it!

If BA were 30 GBP cheaper than EK and you were paying for 4 people out of your own pocket. Who would you choose?

Alternatively you're flying LON-NYC in Y. BA, AA and Norwegian are all the same price do you

A. Book Norwegian and get free wifi?
B. book AA and play 10-15 quid for Wifi?
C. book BA as the flight times are a little more convenient?

LTN Phobia

No matter which side of the fence I might be on (or even straddling the fence), I still laugh at the title "ABBA" every time I see it.

But that aside,

I think there is a widespread issue of forgetting just how much flying from LHR adds to the overall price of a ticket. It's nearly £30 per person except for domestic (ptp domestic is about £19 and transfer domestic is about £14). That's a fee imposed by LHR, on top of everything else like APD per person, and then of course airlines incur landing fees, nav charges, etc. etc - and all other costs. So, even just for LHR-AMS, LHR fees + APD are nearly £43 per person for non-domestic ET - and I added the emphasis here because this is a pretty important number. It's not in BA's pocket.

So, if you pay £61 (an actual cost of a one-way ET fare from LHR I have seen offered on BA) for an ex-LHR one-way ET ticket to BA, BA only gets £18 or thereabouts. They need to cover the cost of fuel, maintenance, staff, etc. etc., as well as landing fees, nav charges etc. from that £18.

Airport passenger charges at other airports are lower (including at LGW) and landing fees are lower from memory as well. Total charges per turnaround at LHR, if my memory serves me, is one of the most expensive in the world.

Then, do a back of an envelope calculation of the following very rough fuel figures for an A320:

Fuel to climb to a normal cruising altitude of 2 tonnes + cruise fuel of roughly 45kg/min + well-managed descent to land with no holding of 300 kg, even if you ignore the taxi fuel, and using £0.50 per kg as an incredibly rough figure, you'll see that just the fuel costs come to a fair amount per passenger even if you use the 100% load factor. That's before any other costs are taken into account.

1010101

Of course some of them are subsidised. Airlines run on single digits margins, typically 5% or less.

An A320 costs VERY roughly $3,000 per hour to operate. That 2.5 hour Alicante flight for £21 costs about $50-55 per passenger at BA's average load factor. That doesn't include all the additional functions going on at HQ.

simons1

Which ex LHR routes have a fare component of £1? And how many tickets do they sell at this price?

What about the last minute booker who pays £300 for a single trip. Or someone who buys a flexible return.

It isn't possible to make such generalisations, if so by now airlines would operate all business configurations. The QR one wasn't a success I believe.

simons1

It isn't that black and white. It depends on more things such as schedules, location etc.

As I live close to LGW I would anticipate in a) I would use EK and in b) debatable/not sure.

NoTiersForMe

Only 169 posts later...
Good one Calchas. I want and need this product.

offshore_bob

Not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread (search revealed nothing) but moneysavingexpert published a blog post yesterday on BA's BoB, jumping on the ABBA bandwagon. They took contributions from 3 members on here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tea...ays-shambolic/

"On the Flyertalk forum, Tristar 1979, who presumably works for BA, wrote: “Just welcomed a group of customers who called it ‘Hungary Airways’ because there was no food left to buy.”

On the same forum corporate-wage-slave said: “They routinely sell out of short-dated items (sandwiches) on the outbound and do not have any for the return.”

And Toonfan said: “Trolley service, when it finally started, was pitifully slow and they ran out of sandwiches about seven rows… [into economy].”