BrianDromey

Given that the manufacturer can only deliver two shipsets a month to BA, I think the roll-out is fairly impressive. Posters love to talk about Q-Suite, but your chances of getting it are no more than 1 in 3. Of course certainl fleets have a higher proportion, but QR are notorious for equipment change. Two years after the roll-out 54 of 158 widebodeis have that seat. (A35J 10/10, A359 10/33, 77L 7/9, 77W: 27/48, 787 0/30 A380 0/10, A330 0/24), United also have had a painful rollout of Polaris, for example. At the same point in the rollout BA will have over 2/3 of the fleet fitted, thats pretty good going.

subject2load

@ BrianDromey - hi there, your points are well made in terms of other rollouts, such as the Q-suite.

Yes, the Q-suite does get a lot of coverage and accolades, but the problem (IMHO) with BA is that they are already so far behind the curve that the time factor becomes a bigger issue where the CS is concerned. By that I mean that even the ‘standard’ non-Q suite seat offered by QR (eg on 787’s and 350-900’s) is advanced when benchmarked against BA’s current outdated product. Alex Cruz himself has, on several occasions, stressed a) all-aisle access and b) decent storage space as the two biggest attractions of the new CS ; yet I have been able to enjoy these advantages on all my QR longhauls over the last three years or so.

i think the CS is a truly welcome development and very much look forward to trying it at some point, availability / route permitting. It’s such a pity it has taken so very long to emerge.

Thepi

Interesting that hbo will be rolled out on more long haul routes and they seem to be copying Virgin's move to economy classic/delight/light

aardvarkdave

From pages 90-95 we can deduce that the value BA places on an Avios point is approximately the same as the “1p/point” that I (and I think many others) use as a rule-of-thumb.

Page 95 shows that 51% of Avios collection is spending not flying, page 90 shows 115bn Avios issued in 2018, thus 58BN Avios issued for “non flying”.

Page 91 shows cash inflow of £350m (net of cash outflow costs for Avios spent on hotels, wine etc.) ie this is the net amount that suppliers spend buying Avios from BA to issue their own customers.

As a guess, if we say that the third party cash outflow is c. £100m (itself implying that about 20% of Avios are used for non-flight spend), this means gross cash inflow of £450m vs 58bn Avios, so each Avios is worth c. 0.8p to BA.

A few assumptions in here, but I feel they’re reasonable ones.

T8191

I tried to get a BA/non-BA spend breakdown to add, but guess what? BA.com won’t generate the numbers, just the transaction date!!

I won’t even try to guess, as we effectively live on the BA Amex.

TheFlyingCyclist

Interesting to note that the A318 is staying until 2023 - it’s often been mooted on here that the LCY-JFK route is not long for this world but it would appear to be staying.

Likewise, as much as we might prefer the mid haul A321s to be replaced with 787s, the four of them soldier on. I guess this is to cover the shortfall in 787s - so no end in sight to the problems there.

marks7389

The Y numbers don't match the seat plans shown. According to the plans shown I make it 127 in the existing 9 abreast setup, vs 140 in the new 10 abreast. I don't actually think that's correct though for the 40W 777-200ER so it looks like the plans are wrong.

Part of the reason the difference isn't bigger is that 3 rows towards the back go from 3-3-3 to 2-4-2. That's probably the one potential upside for Y passengers travelling as a pair.

Flyinghigher1

The points guy is rumoured to be in Cruz back pocket to write good news stories when they are needed. Probably gets paid in free flights, so at practically no cost to the Airline

DYKWIA

It's rumoured that I once had my wicked way with Miss World.

HIDDY

Or maybe he just writes what he experienced? @:-)

To be honest if he gets freebies and I don't know if he does or not then it just enforces what I said before. Only trust reviews - good or bad - from those you know and can trust.

Raffles

We (ie the blogger community) all get free flights off BA - it doesn't mean we are nice about them, and more often than not we (HFP) aren't. We do rate CS but that is coming off a low base of course!

I would recommend the Turning Left For Less review of the Virgin A350 seat which was actually the most scathing review of a freebie I have seen in a long time. Compare with our review (which I'd say was middling) and the God Save The Points review which effectively described it as more impressive than the second coming of Christ would be.

teledude

If I don’t like something and I was asked to review it, well. Fair game Sadly Virgin is still flying that ridiculous seat around. As Raffles pointed out, an enthusiast should be able to pick apart the genuine reviews from those buttering up PR.

HIDDY

Opposing views on the same product......not any different from what we see on this forum every day then? We don't get free flights right enough.

corporate-wage-slave

True but there is one huge difference with 99% plus of experiences reported on Flyertalk compared to semi-pro bloggers (and it should be pointed out that Teledude is in the 1% only some of the time): since the rest of us are using real money or our own Avios to pay for flights, the value for money - relative to the leisure or business travel concerned come out more clearly, along with the genuinely viable alternatives. So an FTer is flying to X, looking at price and quality, rather than the blogger who is blagged a CS or new Virgin UC seat to somewhere of the airline's choice.

atcer28

In terms of free flights for a blogger it is tricky. At TLFL we don’t have the problem very often as the only ones we usually get offered is for new aircraft occasionally. It is tricky as obviously we feel privileged to be included still being a fairly new blog. And we need to cover the new aircraft at the same time as everyone else. But as Teledude says we still have to give our opinion. And it is all subjective.

If we do go on a press trip we try to go again at a later date, ideally with another member of the team- Teledude did the BA A350 long haul recently and I’ve just done the VS A350 so that we can get a feel of it on a normal flight and another team members opinion.

95% of our flights are paid for ourselves with our own personal money or miles. After all, otherwise we would never be able to maintain our status!