UKtravelbear

simons1

Andriyko

There would be no point for an airline or a hotel to follow the FT, as we're not representative of the general public (or some of us are exactly the type of customers that they are trying to lose). Nor would they follow (or care about) 'awards' like Skytrax, no matter how much people refer to them as to some absolute truth. Airlines have access to the most representative data there is - bookings, customer profiles, surveys etc. Listening to a tiny pool of passengers may be a bad idea. FT is a great source of valuable knowledge, but I don't think we can change the purchasing behavior of the other 99.99% of the travelling public in order to influence airlines' decisions in any way.

bisonrav

Well as a little test - BA, how about putting some marmite out in GF at Gatwick? It's in GC.

subject2load

Flexible preferences

This is such an interesting thread ^

I think BA already receive so much direct feedback, from the huge amount of surveys they do, and from customer services, their staff, events and so on. So personally I reckon they probably do take some note of what is said on here, but we need to keep it in context with all their other data. bisonrav's marmite experiment is brilliant! Anyone think of any others?

subject2load

CloudGazer

I wonder if an equal amount of people are lobbying BA to remove this yeasty devil's potion from the lounges too. It is a bit like, errr, Marmite.

snaxmuppet

Wouldn't that be nice... to think that we might actually be able to influence BA company policy and procedures. I wouldn't be surprised if some people at BA reads FT and our ideas probably do get into the mix in a small way but IMHO FTers are not your typical airline passenger. For the most part we are a bunch of frequent flyers and enthusiasts and I expect that we are the minority of passengers. Our ideas, no matter how sound they seem to us, might not look so attractive to BA management when applied to the bulk of the travelling public or they might not be commercial prudent or viable. No harm in mentioning and discussing stuff here for our own interest but I wouldn't kid ourselves that we are going to have much influence.

flatlander

In the aggregate, I am confident BA does take notice of what we say. Well, they know we're saying it - they don't always do what we say.

The signal to noise ratio here, for someone trying to run an airline, is quite low...

Amelorn

Airlines do monitor, if my friend's (LH employee) comment can be extrapolated to other carriers. Impact is another matter. Social media-related employees' intra-company prestige/influence/etc heavily depends on corporate culture.

Takiteasy

muscat

PUCCI GALORE

I fear that this is so close to the truth that it hurts. When I read some of the Fiction and Hyperbole here that poses as facts, I feel slightly vexed as it detracts from valid points and criticism and reduces the credibility of the place as a whole. I long recall that at one time when we had some drama tragedy that had played out in (mostly) the F cabin where someone didn't get a proper munu, had to wait 10 minutes for something or other such tragedies on occasion I used to ask via PM for the details so that I could find out a bitof what had gone on. In 12 years, I had one reply. I drew my own conclusions. Safe in the anonymity of the internet one was free to say what one wanted irrespective of facts and heedless of accuracy. One unique individual comes to mind who when asked, and I was really only trying to help, came out with the the most ambiguous vague reply that I'd ever received.So in the absence of any real detail one is left with vagueness. It was hilarious the other day when someone was complaining about the number of rows in CE there had been encountered on these pages someone else who had been there and had a totally different view and experience delivered by the same cabin crew.

This is a wonderful resource and there are people here who are so very generous with their time and their knowledge for which I for one am very grateful. However, there are others for whom, I would say, seem to have a chip on their shoulders the size of railway sleepers about British Airways. Whilst their opinions are worth the same as anyone's, I can well understand why these may not be taken seriously by any organisation. So to return the the original question, I suspect that BA concern themselves far more with people in big corporations who they know to be customers rather than a load of handles who could be anyone.

For the record, when I came to FT - and this is not the first time that I have said so - I promised Him Indoors that I would never reveal my identity. We know of someone who was practically hounded out of AA Reservations because she was accused of "stirring up the Eites" - it was the intervention of several big customers who spent massive amounts with AA who got this stopped. She had, however, to stop posting here. So, yes, we may be read but those of us who come (or came here) in my case and said what was what rather than the party line had to be very caredful and one or two were not, So, whilst I am certain that they monitor this Forum, how much notice they take of it may be questionable.

The Marmite was at LGW on Thursday 22nd November as I took some. It is a big tub with little packs weighing 8gm inside. What I want to know is do they put them out at Tea Time. Marmite does not work at all well with Champagne however.

fotographer

I would think like with any airline, all of us at FT probably represent a very small portion of their customer base. If you think about lets say 300 passengers on a plane,
maybe 2 or 3 passengers might be on FT.. the rest, who book leisure travel, maybe 3 or 4 times a years have probably never even heard of this wonderful site.

Airlines know that once you are part of a mileage program, you will probably stay with it,
the leisure traveler is who they are after, They are the ones that will probably choose price over sticking to any one airline