Most of the travel videos I watch or news items on airline ratings inevitably seem to descend into either jokes about Ryanair or criticism of how lousy BA is “these days”. Of particular focus is often BA First with frequent comparisons to Etihad, Lufthansa, and Air France La Premiere. So finally I have the opportunity to find out for myself in 2 weeks (First from LHR to ORD - A380) but the first surprise was the price - I booked economy out and First return for $2,600 which to me is a great deal, if I looked at Lufthansa the price would be at least double that.

So is this BA’s secret - their First class product is deliberately sub-standard compared to other airlines simply because they sell those seats at such a competitive price point ?

Price is part of the equation. BA tends to have more seats in F than their competitors (depending on aircraft type and competitor more than double), which allows them to milk the maximum on direct routes (think >£10k) and then sell the rest cheaply to connecting traffic (plus of course the various GUFs & POUGs). For the core target audience (not very price sensitive but focused on convenience and comfort) that works very well - a lot of rich people want to travel between London and the world. A connection in Frankfurt (even if it is a Porsche aircraft to aircraft transfer is probably not what these people consider ideal).

Unfortunately that model means that BA can get away with an inferior product (people value the no-stop element over caviar), and the high number of people on cheap tickets give further incentive not to invest.

Hmm ...... maybe not the ideal basis for an advertising campaign ; but at least some encouragement there for any regular economy flyers who might be wondering whether it’s worth splashing out on a first class ticket.
(In next week’s review we’ll be looking at how the Bentley Continental GT stacks up against the Nissan Micra :D)

But joking apart, it’s hardly a state secret that BA have zero desire to create some sort of benchmark for First class air travel, or to even attempt to match the sort of products currently offered by the more innovative carriers, where F (or in some cases, biz too) is concerned.

So you certainly won’t be seeing any Singapore Airlines type luxury on BA aircraft any time soon ....... no onboard lounges / bars as on Qatar .......and no inflight showers or chauffeured limo pick-up / drop-offs as enjoyed by Emirates passengers.

Plus, I really cannot agree that it’s a matter of ‘hate’. If people find that their shopping experience in, say, Waitrose is superior to that in Tesco, it does not follow that they hate Tesco.

As others have said above - and very often across many previous threads - the current-day BA chooses to follow an entirely different strategy and with that comes a different pricing structure.