'andad

Thank you for better informed info Nimrod. At the time I was told that rotor overlap was the reason that the civilian version did not have the very good safety record of the military service model. Either way I never liked flying in them, the fuselage seemed to have an unatural yawing movement.

rockflyertalk

So once BA announce their new CW next year...will this put them back in the top 10?

HMPS

Sounds like what BA will claim and some ardent believers will support it. Trouble with companies who have fallen behind think their "new- improved" XYZ factor like seats will pull them up to the top. Pity is they don't realize that the competition that was already ahead has also been working on "Newer -improved" products. You don't get to be in top 10 by being asleep at the wheel or introducing "enhancements" .

Nimrod1965

lost_in_translation

I think what BA do in Y will have a much bigger impact on this survey than anything in J / F.

Andriyko

How do you think BA will benefit from getting back into the Top 10? Or how do you think it is suffering from not being there now?

IAN-UK

This is getting tiresome. Being in the top ten is, in itself, of little or no import: I think few individuals or corporations will consult a league table of carriers before selecting a flight.

The league is simply a relative measure, a reflection, of the brand's success. A high ranking suggests the brand is trusted, respected (& etc) moe than others, and will, in the long term, be successful in attracting support from customers and (important this bit) can get away with charging more for its service/product than its competitors.

Just about every airline fills its seats. Sustainability comes from the yield it can generate from selling those seats, and that's where brand success rules.

Andriyko

The only reason it is getting tiresome is because nobody bothers to actually answer the question of why should the surveys or Skytrax rankings be of any importance for airlines. Everybody argues based on their believes and visions of what an airline should be and think that just because the airline does not meet their requirements it means that it is about to go out of business because surely others think so too. Some people cannot for a second think that it just might be that others have other preferences. Referring to the 'long run' in reference to airlines is neither here nor there. I've been on this board for 13 years now, and in these years every decision that BA made that the FT board disliked was met with the very familiar reaction of the kind that 'it-will-surely-hurt-BA-and-if-not-now-that-in-the-longterm,' well, 13 years is pretty longterm when it comes to business planning, and, yet, BA is still here with us. Which brings me back to my point that some people refuse to accept that maybe, just maybe, their analysis is wrong and biased because all of their predictions from long time ago have not come to life. Of course, nobody comes back to admit that they were wrong even though they authoritatively stated that surely would be the case.

I don't know why pointing the obvious amounts to being a BA apologist? The trend is not BA related, it is air travel related. Why people cannot see that escapes me. I would have made the same comments about the same issues regarding other airlines had I been active on their respective forums. I like travelling nicely as much as anyone else (and we talked about). However, that does not stop me from accepting the reality, which is that airtravel stopped being glamourous. People need the basic of getting from A to B for the cheapest price as comfortable as possible. Has BA failed in being the top airline for experience seekers? Probably, based on all the reviews and comparisons I read here. Has BA failed as an airline? No.

Arctic Troll

In and of themselves, rankings like SuperBrands or Skytrax mean absolutely nothing. They're nice if you have a good ranking, it's a nice little badge for your website, but beyond that they mean nothing.

However if your brand reputation is dropping, especially in something like SuperBrands (which is assessed by surveys of the general population), it does matter a little bit more. It won't affect how many bums you get on your seats- anyone can fill a plane- but it will affect the yield. You can't charge a premium if your reputation is dirt, can you?

Andriyko

While I agree that the brand's reputation plays a significant role in how we shop, I don't think that the elements emphasized on FT (the so-called 'product') plays a significant part in how the brand of an airline is perceived. One only needs to consult the results of the IATA global survey to see that the top 3 factors that impact airline brand perception have nothing to do with food or specific seat design. Of course, many will never believe the results of a survey if they do not correspond to their views, however, passengers are behaving exactly as these surveys show and not at all as many on FT claim they should or would be.
Airline pricing has nothing to do with how highly their 'product' is thought of on Skytrax or FT or other rankings. Don't people brag here how they fly a vaaaaaaaaaaaaastly superior QR for half the price that BA wanted?
And we can also refer to the experience of AA that did experiment with offering more legroom and charging a premium, and we know how 'well' that ended. Quite why people still think that there are millions of passengers who are eager to pay more to get to their destination is unlcear. If all it took to charge a premium were to offer a better seat or more legroom or some food airlines would have been doing it.

Arctic Troll

The same reason why millions of people will cheerfully pay extra to stay in a Hilton hotel, even though there's a Travelodge over the street. Or will spend $5000 more on a BMW even though a Ford has all the same gadgets and the same build quality.

Reputation is far more important than you seem to be implying. It isn't about having a good seat or good food, it's about having the reputation for having good seats or good food. Look at Emirates, successfully marketing themselves as a premium airline despite having 10-abreast Y on a 777.

People will, and do, pay a premium if they think they are buying into a luxury or premium brand. And, conversely, they will not pay a premium if they think they are buying into a low-cost brand.

IAN-UK

I had a stab at answering your question. I explained why brand ranking might give important information to any organisation selling directly to the public in a competitive environment. I aimed for objectivity.

For the record, for me BA is just another airline. I end up on them a lot because I live in the UK and they often win the frequency/convenience argument in my work-bsed travel planning. But with a base in the north, I'm just as likely to hub through Brussels, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Munich or Zurich on my *A friends. I'm human, and the silliness of a cheesy cheese sandwich + a drink has some impact of my decision-making, but I harbour no visceral dislike of BA.

And that weird irrationality is what brand is all about. I have the wherewithal to purchase a sandwich and, if I push the boat out, a drink as well. Buying on board shouldn't impact on my decision making. But somehow my unthinking perception of BA has been coloured by the introduction of buy-on-board.

Combine that particular focus with a multitude of other issues which impact directly on travellers or indirectly on the general public, and perhaps you can see why the BA brand is on a sinking trajectory. Basically, there has been no good news to counter the bad, and the marketing that previously captured minds and souls just isn't there.



You're answering a question nobody posed. Manifestly, BA has not failed. It has fallen quite dramatically in a league that assesses the power of brands.

Andriyko

Which is why people pay for PE, business and first class. But whether the 'brand' is as powerful when it comes to deciding between the same cabin on different airlines is questionable. Passengers' behavior patterns, and how they respond in surveys, suggest that, generally, they won't pay more to fly on another airline in the same class of service, which means that certain elements (free cookie and a drink in economy or a different seat design in business) are of no particular value for them. While the brand's reputation is important, the factors that affect it are not what many here believe they are.

Yes, you did. But my question was not really 'why should airlines care about their brand and reputation?'. It was more about why should they care about some specific rankings which criteria is heavily tilted towards very specific elements that most people do not care about when they make purchasing decisions. When a falling Skytrax ranking does not affect your financial results, or when a reviewer who swore off flying your airline turns around and buys a ticket from you because you offered the most convenient or the cheapest flight, why should you care?

HMPS

Rankings can be manipulated , contrived by tricks, by buying etc. For a person not as cynical as we Fters are they mean a lot. People often pick a higher ranking choice absent first hand choice/ knowledge thinking " it is rated higher by my peers. In this case the "halo effect" goes a long way, advertising rights are a big plus ( how many adverts do we see claiming "best in class" etc ?). Survey companies like J D Power do not charge anything for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to survey CUSTOMER Satisfaction with product X ( say autos). They make their money for a company to use their name in adverts and sor sharing their survey details with manufacturers / sellers etc. Look at the rankings of Insurance Institute's car safety rankings.....long term reliability etc. Do they impact the buying decisions ?
We are "trained" to look at and lend credence to such rankings......Ultimately there is no guarantee how credible most survey results are given we do not know who replied and their biases.
If the day ever comes when BA improves to be in the top five, you will see a stance crowing about it .

Tobias-UK