HMPS

Captain came out to apologize for cold soup ? Surely a first ?

FoxtrotOscar

passy777

kaizenflying

redeyedonkey

BA needs more balance over this kind of thing - shoddy looking planes with cold soup in Club as a one off is a mild annoyance but the frequency of complaints with the two main TA airlines pushing hard cost cutting (AA and BA) vs Delta/Virgin is pretty noticeable. AA is considerably ahead of BA in the aggressive cuts they've made to everything and have already cut themselves to making 1/3 the profit of Delta despite carrying more passengers. This BA strategy is sure working in the short term but if I had to predict I'd see profits fall as they have to sell more and more premium seats at a discount.

I do sleep better in CW than the old 1-2-1 seats on AA/Delta [some of which aren't set to be retired/refitted by the looks of things] etc (eg AA from Man-Phi) but in other ways they're better (smaller cabin/better service routinely, but not always/more private seats for solo travellers without legs to climb over etc but we all make our call on priorities there and come to different conclusions so I know others will feel the other way). I find the CW seat more comfortable in more positions so don't mind the lack of storage/space/whatever some people hate.

BUT it gets to the point where you try another couple of airlines - I'm flying Delta more, Virgin Upper for the first time, Korean was quite magical out East... and so on. And have had no issues/found things better mostly. Now ofc that's a tiny sample but when you combine it with the fact I used to be Gold on BA and look nowhere else, and the fact that nobody else is complaining as much as AA/BA passengers are these days in premium cabins there must be more folks like me. And the experiences so far have made me more of a 'free agent' than BA abandoner but... eventually who knows how much BA flying I'll do instead of every TA trip and every connecting/internal flight with their OW partner AA it's now 20-30%.

I'm also much more price sensitive with BA. I will happily snap up a discount CW flight for 1450 return but I'd NEVER pay full price for it if I miss that window. Not too long ago I used to love flying CW and wasn't automatically switching to another airline whenever I needed to book 'closer to the travel date' and prices were therefore up at 3,500 or whatever.

Aggressive cuts to quality and service fail really hard because they fail the same way business process reengineering failed (a management consulting fad from a few decades ago) - you strip everything out and profits artificially spike until all the damage beds in and things collapse and it's virtually impossible to turn it back around. I hope BA finds some balance before they go too far with some of this stuff.

To be fair to BA though they do have to bear in mind the competitive landscape. Some of the mainland competitors run some pretty weird business configurations and interesting service/temperature conditions (Lufthansa I do not like much so far) so combined with having to connect... one might still regard even the current CW ahead of a lot of choices (especially if one found, for example, a super old AA seat from MAN prohibitively uncomfortable for good sleep vs myself who finds it mildly uncomfortable but just about able to sleep on it).

subject2load

firstlight

This is only a discussion board, I'm not too worried about a bit of banter. I used the word 'disaster' deliberately tongue in cheek, of course it's all relative in club world. But given our company travel manager rates a Premier card due to flight volume BA need to watch out how they treat their corporate customers. My next flight is now with Norwegian...

simons1

I'm surprised no-one has been along to highlight the new Gazpacho dish in CW and say how wonderful it all is....

Globaliser

What do you mean by "short term", though? How many more years of this strategy do we need to endure before disaster ensues? The current BA approach of cutting the costs that don't appear to be essential began long before Alex Cruz started his current job. We've seen the FT warnings of "short-term gain, long-term pain" over and over again since then - yet the airline's collapse has been singularly elusive so far.

One of the things that's notable in today's industry is that the people who make the really important purchasing decisions are not the people who have to experience the poorer quality and poorer service that the cuts have produced. The people who do have to experience those things may complain as much as they like, but they're going to have to continue flying the airline that others have chosen for them. I do sometimes wonder whether that's linked to the vehemence with which those complaints are made here.

flight125

It's a nice touch, but the captain visiting to apologise does seem a bit OTT.

redeyedonkey

Agreed - that's why I was careful to balance my post out with the competition note at the end. The cuts will work as long as enough people can see 'some positives' vs plausible alternatives. But if they drive the costs so low that they're only competing on the basis of being 'the cheapest plausible option' relying on companies with that kind of travel policy forcing flyers on that will surely drive profits down at some point.

Anyway as you say they seem to have skirted the line well enough over the years to keep 'most' people satisfied (or forced) enough to fly them so it is working so far... Hopefully they'll continue that as a minimum because if they do they'll at least be 'not too bad' to fly on those cases when it's fiscally prudent for me to do so! And maybe new Club World will be amazing when all the planes have it in 2030 . 'Not too bad' isn't really what I'm looking for when the price is similar elsewhere but it's definitely good enough for me when it's an amazing deal... it used to be I'd book CW without thinking.

I'm most surprised they aren't hurting heading 'out east' tbh. It seems to be where the most luxurious competition is and given BA's typical pricing there seems to be not even the price incentive to lock in loyalty. Unless some corporates have truly crazy deals of course.

HMPS

Bolding mine.

Shareholders need to propose that senior mangers' bonuses be tied to Satisfaction survey. Otherwise this slow bleeding of CUSTOMERS will continue but by the time the snowball is too large to handle, this team will be retired somewhere nice with a lifetime perk of F travels.

Charley4

I thought that I had one such problem.

He flew to California, the flight was long.

As a result, served cold dishes, as if they just got out of the freezer.

mjh0

I think the BA fit was an Aviation-certified version of the Panasonic 1800W Catering grade microwave, so double the power of most domestic microwave ovens (usually about 900W).

Interesting comment that consideration is being given to the 777 interior refit programme being brought back in-house and done at BAMC.

LTN Phobia

I think BA is missing something here.

They should do soup that is to be served chilled, especially when the flight involves somewhere warm or if they're going to have the cabin too warm.

No hassle of keeping it hot, or heating it.