fiona

Good job you don't travel from Aberdeen!

EuropeanPete

But if there’s no jetty, how is BA going to leave all the CE customers standing in boiling heat in it for 15min during summer?

Ultra LCC tactics of this sort really turn me off BA as what I’m trying to buy with CE and BA when several times the cost of alternatives is convenience and comfort. I can’t see BA ever using the BUD “immigrant cages” used by Wizzair, but it would certainly make a new low I am sure they would have looked at.

scottishpoet

I have had it confirmed that BA no longer pays for the use of the jetty and that is why it is not being used.

I have no information why BA has made the decision to stop paying for the jetty.

Bohinjska Bistrica

The injection of cost cutting into its DNA.

13901

Normally airports have some document, online, showing the charges to use the various infrastructure and so on. BUD has actually created a pretty nifty calculator, which can be found at the link at the bottom of my post. By looking at a 156-seater A320ceo on a 45-minute turnround it looks as if the difference between the 'basic gate' (which, as per BUD's airport website, includes only 'pedestrian boarding') and the normal gate is 372 euro per flight; considering that BUD has an average of 3 flights/day, assuming they're all there and backs (the calculator doesn't allow for night stops), the difference is in the region of 400k euro, if this is correct, which I suppose is a saving considering that cost-cutting is in Alex's DNA. I must admit, though, that I enjoyed flying on Lufthansa this morning, boarding the plane on-pier through the jetway.

https://www.bud.hu/en/business_and_p...ges_calculator

BAeuro

At what point will BA stop and actually realise that soon they’ll have not one benefit against easyJet.

I mean I get BOB (not that I like it) and extra seats but this is getting silly, I know bus gates save money but BA are a main airline and should use them where available. Some things should be kept even if they cost money, only airlines such as Ryanair should be providing the bare minimum because what more can you expect for Ł10.

icegirl

I wonder if this may be a strategic decision to deliberately degrade routes and services to eventually make most if not all short haul a LCC and integrate it into Vueling or Level.

FlyerTalker6823123456

Budapest is a great example of where BA’s product is really showing its true colours.

I live almost equidistant to LHR/LGW so airport doesn’t matter, but am a BA Gold with access to many BA discounts and am well versed in the benefits of the T3 lounges.

Yet... with such a bare-bones economy product, consistently (often very) expensive fares to BUD compared to easyJet, why on earth would I fly BA? Even the lounges, tier points and Avios don’t swing it... I’d rather spend that at the destination than pay a high premium for some ‘free’ Avios and lounge access.

nancypants

Maybe BUD is the next LED or KBP?

krispy84

I hope not. BA still have multiple flights daily so hopefully that’s a good sign. I always had the impression that BUD did well for BA, although I’m not sure what I was basing that on.

BAflyer2007

They won't. The blinkers are on and as others have said this "Cost Cutting in the DNA" seems to top everything else. Cuts cuts and more cuts dressed up as enhancements.

Letting everyone bring 2 x cabin items (in reality more) seems to be the only thing BA have at the moment over the LCCs.

13901

LF isn't much to go by these days, but in my BA years I all but gave up flying standby there. Lost counts of the days I didn't get on the first flight, or on the second... and in summer there are 4 flights a day. LOTS of US connections, all - go figure - going on those Danube cruises.

Frequent flyer 101

BUD is one of the few airports where CE / status passengers don't get fast track security. BA seems to be one of the only airlines not paying for this as almost all other major airlines will pay for it.

If the queue is very long, there is actually a long corridor to the right that goes to the terminal 2A security entrance. It is almost always much faster. So much so, that I usually have the taxi drop me off at 2A instead when I have no check-in bags. Your boarding pass will work at the automated gates for both and security areas drop you out in the same duty free shop.

All lounges at BUD suck. There are 3 priority pass lounges before passport control. All are bad. Over the years they have cut costs by switching to the big 2L bottles of coke etc. The 2B lounge that BA uses does have great runway views and is OK if its quiet. Quite often it is very busy in which case it is terrible. The food in that lounge is beyond a joke (does anyone know that that mystery meat actually is?).

Since the construction of terminal 2C pier, there are often big areas with empty seats, so I often prefer just to go sit there. Of course, the seats are rock hard as this area was mean for LCCs. But it's ok if the lounge is busy.

Boarding on a jetbridge was one of the tew hings that made BA stand out. BUD can get very cold in winter and it's really no fun to be out on the tarmac then. Coming off it's not too bad, but if you are boarding and stuck in a queue, it's not a nice experience.

I don't know why, but I get the impression the owners of BUD charge a lot of fees for these kinds of things.

ENTP

Even more harrowing is that we all pay the same airport fees for being on a flight from a particular airport. Appreciate this will largely relate to flat costs regarding landing slots/ATC, security and big labour/building overheads - but I guess my point is that pax will see none of that €2/flight/pax saving that BA is making.

BAeuro

A friend of mine flew VCE-LHR today and had a bus gate where they were left waiting on the tarmac to board. Do we think this could become common across the short haul ops - the end of the jetty for BA?