It's not about me mentioning it. It's about what people have been saying in surveys for many years now and how the general public have been behaving for many years now as well. There is no greater power than the power of one's wallet.



I agree that there are a few people who still expect everything for paying next to nothing. They pay for an HBO ticket but then slam the airline for being cheap and not allowing a bag in the hold. They pay for a BoB flight and then slam the airline for being cheap and not feeding them. They pay for a ticket that includes one small carry-on item only, and then slam the airline for being cheap and not allowing to move houses for free because they bought the ticket.
Yes, there are cheap people, yes, there are people who expect everything for nothing... So what? That won't change where the market is and how it works.


What do security requirements imposed by governments have to do with airlines? I think people are happy to trade a couple of hours at the airport in exchange for some assurance that they won't be blown up in the air by some lunatics.


Of course, there is demand for more comfortable travel, and people who pay for premium economy, business or first class are voting with their wallets and pay exactly for what they want rather than come here and whine about not getting something for free in exchange for purchasing a ticket. Those people are actually paying more to get what they want - a concept that seems to escape many people here.



But there is a choice. There are premium cabins where people can pay more to get more. If people think that there is a market for luxurious economy travel that no airline wants to tap, there are wrong. No one will offer a product for ten or a hundred or a even a thousand people. Maybe there is no choice for this small group of people, but if airlines are basically screaming to them that they're not going to offer a product that is not appealing to 99% of the travelling public, maybe it's high time these people made their peace with it? Why don't these people simply purchase a drink or a sandwich on board and enjoy their flight the way they want to? Why does it make a difference to them that the sandwich and a drink are forced upon them and other passengers by the airline rather than purchased?
Also, people are saying directly to airlines to 'lower their tone,' by voting with their wallets. Remember AA and its more legroom in coach concept? How did that end? It often astonishes me how much people are willing to disregard what is actually going on on the market and how people are behaving and prefer, instead, to believe in their own ideas of what travel should be. It's always 'no choice,' 'monopoly,' 'trapped by whatever forces.' I just can't understand why it is so hard to accept that this is what people actually want. This is where air travel is. The evidence is right there. All one has to do is be open to accepting that things do not work the way they think they do...

This is mostly true tbh but what about this. Take for example business class. All EU carriers have sub par business class cabins (except new iterations e.g. Air France -KLM new business and club suite. Club suite being the best in Europe. Lufthansa being the absolute worst) anyway that aside. All EU carriers have “sub par” business class and economy cabins compared to Middle Eastern and airlines to the east because EU carriers have higher costs. Do you know how expensive it is to operate out of the EU, specifically Heathrow? The costs these airlines have to deal with? Unions? Pay to staff? Things that are just not as high in countries in the east. Labour is significantly cheaper so they can afford to go above and beyond on product. Because operations are generally cheaper for them than EU airlines. So many EU regulations make things so expensive. BA has one of the highest costs operating out Heathrow. Slots costs millions of dollars PER SLOT and BA has 55% so you can imagine the costs they have to deal with compared to other markets where things like operations are significantly cheaper

Though this is not about cost - this is what airlines can get away with. If I'm flying from New York to Frankfurt Lufthansa may have the worst (really?) business class of all the European carriers, but it still beats the hell out of connecting somewhere in the Arabian desert - or even connecting in Heathrow.

So in a way, as long as there are no real alternatives, investing in a better product would be wasting shareholder value.

I agree with this, same for BA which is why they have been able to get away with their business class product for so long. Especially because businesses who have a contract with them want the quickest and most direct flights.

correct given how large a shareholder Qatar is in IAG that owns BA.

That worked so long as AA DL and UA were rubbish and VS FFP was niche.
That has all changed and Polaris seat on the coming United 76L six times a day leaves BA’s Club to JFK bottom compared the other four from LHR, and will do so for as long as 744s appear on the route.
so I suspect until BA is more honest about its sub par product there will continue to be issues with customers where it over promises and under delivers.
this applies to both product and the jam tomorrow drivel it’s CEO drones on about. (3 years now and for £6.5 trillion or whatever its is there’s not much to show for it except one new plane that goes to Madrid.)

Some of those 777’s you dislike so much are indeed pretty ancient (I suspect they take on wood rather than fuel), with the average age of the BA fleet overall undoubtedly very high compared to many other major carriers,

Not sure just how reliable their data is, but this particular site states that of 72 airlines operating the 777, BA ranks at a lowly 62 in terms of ‘youthfulness’.........
https://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/...%20Airways.htm

Like you, I’m not remotely a fan of the current CW config, but maybe you are as encouraged as I am that there is finally a fresh product to be rolled out, with much-needed storage space and all-aisle access. Early reports of the new CW suite are almost universally positive ; but until such time as it’s widely available across the l/h network, the sweet spot for many pax will perhaps remain one of the small number of prized seats on 747 U/D, combined (ideally) with a good, pro-active crew.