Nimrod1965

Those new seats look awful, definitely won’t be renewing Silver this year (not that Cruz or anyone else will care). I’ll be investing in a Priority Pass and avoiding BA after my 3 already booked trips for this year.

TedToToe

thejohn

I have done my 4 flights with BA and other than Avios flights I will not pay to fly BA short haul now this is even more reinforced by the continued densification and reducing the number of loo's the queues can be horrific now and when the BOB trolleys are very slowly creeping up the aisle you can't pass them, what they going to be like when these aircraft are flying. I will make gold by the middle of Feb, 4 and a half months into my year, and all but 20 Teir points will have been on BA sad but true.
John

msm2000uk

I believe CIHY addressed the query further upthread.

IIRC, the wardrobe is staying, but certain BA items are being moved into it, meaning the space within will become densified. This will allow for more items to be placed within, but arguably in less comfort.

M

Worcester

Seems the tie-up between Marks & Spencer and BA is getting close. S&M Weekly magazine (don't recall seeing it at the checkout) has voted these new seats top marks or as they put it 5 strikes...

Severn40

It was a tongue in cheek comment. I actually agree - Easyjet has a good product and had good service with them over the years. Given the stripping out of cabin features, apart from the fortress Heathrow location, there is now little product differentiation in Y between the two airlines. I find it interesting how far Cruz can take the Y product and the impact it can have on the perception of the brand.

ginger50

Gosh, the seats feature in S&M weekly do they? Does this mean they are fitted with restraints rather than seatbelts?

Worcester

Well that's the beauty of it, no one will expect the Spanish Inquisition...

WorldLux

Seems obvious. The days where you'd be able to milk customers for using Wifi are long gone. I can't think of an hotel I've stayed at in the past 8 to 10 years that still charged for Wifi. Some offered premium packages (for more devices/speed), but basic access with decent speed was always free. Same goes for hotels and some cities that operate their own networks.

An ... in the seat pays money. A screen does not. The screens + cables + the computer unit will amount to a noticeable amount of weight. Given that most passenger carry at least one multimedia device with them, it seems only sensible to retire those systems and offer passenger the basic flight information over the WLAN. As already mentioned LH does just that. Other airlines and even train operators have similar approaches.

Or pre-flight fight clubs to see who gets to use the bins. With the current configuration it's often difficult enough for everyone to find space in the bins. It's not going to get any better if you put in more seats. The obvious solution to the problem is to strictly enforce the yellow tags (which crews IME do semi-strictly) and/or to have a cut-off after a certain number of carry-ons have been boarded.

These days you just check in minutes before the OLCI closes and you'll likely get an exit row. No need to run to the plane and on that one FR flight I took in the past decade, the crew had closed the two bins on each side to make sure that the passenger in the exit row would have some place to store their things (something BA could do as well).

That's something that I've been wondering about recently too. I had a 40£ return short haul flight on BA. Two checked bags each way and lounge access both directions via status.



The issue is however that the new seat will be considerably thinner than the current one and BA/Recaro can say whatever they like but at the end of the day a thinner seat implies thinner cushioning which in turn means less comfortable.

• Store them and reuse them when CE seats wear out.
• Sell them
• Write them off and send them to the landfill

"You lot always complained that the CE seat was identical to the ET seat. In response to customer feedback we are now introducing a new seat to differentiate our premium CE experience from economy class"

bmibaby737

I'm assuming the Pinaccle seats will go into the front of the neos? They'll use some of them up that way then i guess. And they'll buy more and some stage so will use a few up in the process.

the 319's are keeping the current seats and layouts then?

scottishpoet

yes, and moving to gatwick

FlyerTalker688786

Will Gatwick short haul have better seats than Heathrow fleet?...I never saw that day coming!

florens

It seems so.

dinbangkok

I read this thread with sadness. I think that BA are making a big mistake by trying to compete on price by continuing to degrade their short haul product. (IMHO a lack of recline is a major compromise especially if the flight is part of a longer itinerary). No-one ever made money by racing to the middle. Thankfully where I spend most of my time now (Asia) I have the luxury of choosing between scheduled airlines such as CX, SQ & TG for shorthaul Y (all of whom use wide bodied aircraft with IFE and offer a full service) or if I’m looking to save money say Jakarta to Singapore I can choose a budget carrier for 50 quid and splash out an extra 15 quid if I want to be escorted from check-in to a lounge and then in a limo straight to the aircraft. Different world hey! On my recent short haul trips within Europe I’ve flown both BA and LH out of LHR but have found myself thinking that even out of LHR LH offers a superior product and better lounge than BA. It’s a great shame because I think if BA has any hope of maintaining any kind of
positive differentiation where people will be happy to spend a little bit more, it won’t be through cutbacks. Heaven help BA if the budget airlines in Europe cotton on to the absurdly cheap premium add ons that Asian budget airlines offer. No I’m not into BA bashing, on the contrary I wish it would get off its rear end and regain the reputation it once had and climb up the quality rankings so it would at least have some substance to the Britishness it purports to represent.

Ldnn1

Again, this argument has been made repeatedly on here every time in the past 5-10 years that BA has downgraded the shorthaul product. Every time, the next step by BA has been to downgrade the product further and to compete more on price.

Make of that what you will...

European LCCs have already cottoned on and have rolled out lots of add-ons, memberships etc targeted at the premium market.