PAL62V

https://www.theguardian.com/business...e_iOSApp_Other

The item begins: British Airways has taken a nosedive in UK passengers’ opinions and is now rated just above Ryanair at the bottom end of the airline rankings.

aristoph

A BA spokesman said: “Our own data shows customer satisfaction scores have increased, and continue to increase, as we deliver our £6.5bn investment for customers on new aircraft, new food, new lounges and new technology.

“We offer our customers a choice of cabins on all our flights, lounges for business class customers, free food for all long-haul flights and business class for short haul, and we are delighted to be able to offer our customers the most extensive network by any UK airline.”

There's that £6.5bn again. They must have spent it 10x over in marketing spin!

nancypants

The rest of the report may be fine but I do get a bit naffed off with the journalism when they have inaccurate quotes such as


it may be largely a turboprop operator, but it is also a jet operator, which it would take them about 5 seconds to fact check and therefore report accurately

Jagboi

Interesting spin, given that KLM serves more UK cities than BA does!

HIDDY

You don't have to be liked to be successful.

Greenpen

Although I have only read the Guardian report, I do get them impression that the low cost airlines are now getting much better findings in areas such as customer service. I think that’s a huge failure from BA.

orbitmic

It's a good example on why one should always be forward thinking before heading for cheap PR.

BA are questioning the methodology - rightly in my view in that this is based on a self-selected sample (though they refer to their own research which based on everything I have seen is very poorly crafted). However, how credibly do they think they can do this when they were "delighted" by the same study using the same methodology on a even more questionable basis finding them the "best short haul airline" 4 years ago.

The bottom line is that you have to choose your camp. Either you dismiss the methodology from the start even when it serves you and you protect yourself from the risk that a weak methodology could find you poor in the same way it found you good, or you embrace it and gloat when it serves you right but then accept the results equally when it slams you.

So on substance, as I said, I'm very wary of self-selected samples and you have to take them with a big vat of salt. That said, I would also say that even with such rubbish sampling procedure (or lack thereof), this is unlikely to be entirely random noise. It may well be that the "direction of change" in BA ratings is inflated or on the contrary under-reported, but it is most unlikely that such a change in ratings in the self-selected samples would hide either a stable perception or an improvement of perception among the real population. You would need to believe in some sort of conspiracy theory of the "only massive BA apologists used to vote, now they are bored and now only BA haters vote" type of vision.

Furthermore, whilst the Aurigny Air rating is likely to be based on a small number of people whilst most wouldn't know anything about their service, chances are that the BA, U2, FR, etc products are well enough known that the basis is actually fairly knowledgeable (and indeed, if you asked any random BA short haul plane to rate the quality of the onboard catering - one of the questions here - in 2015 and 2019, how on earth would you even expect those answers to improve or even be stable or simply not to take a "nosedive" given that a majority of the plane is travelling economy and has moved from full bar and basic to good catering depending on flight length to 0+0=0 unless you wish to pay).

So in practice, whether those respondents were not particularly biased (either positively or negatively) towards BA compared to the majority of the population, or whether they are a bunch of opinionated people who write (be it positively or negatively) because they care, there is every chance that Which? 's conclusions say something meaningful despite the methodology being a very poor one that would particularly affect less well known carriers.

Tobias-UK

And yet:

“British Airways has been named Airline of the Year at one of the aviation industry’s most prestigious award ceremonies.

CAPA - Centre for Aviation, is one of the world’s most trusted sources of market intelligence for the aviation and travel industry.

CAPA’s annual Global Aviation Awards for Excellence was held in Malta on Thursday, December 5th. “


Source: https://www.air101.co.uk/2019/12/bri...o/fMxO+(Air101)

BA6948

The award was given by judges and is not based on customer feedback. Customers beg to differ on airlinequality.com, tripadvisor and twitter.

wemyss

It's a sad reflection on what was once a quality airline...

13901

We had exactly the same thread last year if I remember correctly, and for another year I’m left wondering about how wide, demographically speaking, is Which?’s sample and, more importantly, how on Earth can you bundle Aurigny and Ryanair in the same category. Sure they both have planes but that’s about it. Even Skytrax - Skytrax! - does some market segmentation.

subject2load

True. On that basis, I guess the likes of Ryanair and easyJet have been very successful.

slicktony

Well, it’s people who are prepared to pay for Which, so presuming they are older, whiter, more middle class and more English than BA users as a whole doesn’t strike me as particularly heroic.

But going back to Hiddy’s point, I’m not sure what difference losing the John Lewis brigade particularly makes to BA.

Schind

The only numbers that matter. The numbers took a hit in September due to the strikes but they're still going up. Note that cargo is taking a bit of a hit right now though.

Sam Bee

Was thinking about this. Had a conversation with my 13 year old as we have a BA flight in a couple of days. She's primarily flown long haul on from LCY on BA in last couple of years, so has no concept of BOB (or even not having a seat back TV) and flying BA with no entertainment, wifi, food or drink took her by surprise.

Just wonder if a lot of the judgement from passengers is because in the last couple of years they have seen things taken away from when flying on BA - food, drink, and now free baggage and legspace. It's not necessarily a comparison of BA vs Aurigny vs Easyjet, but more BA 2019 vs BA 2017. I'd say that in last couple of years Easyjet and even Ryanair to an extent (note - stopped flying Ryanair in 2011 so taking from reports) have improved their offerings and even Norwegian is a huge loco and provides free wifi.

People still see BA as a Premium carrier (which I think it is) but don't appreciate the marginally cheaper fares, just what they have lost in the last couple of years.Not much BA can do about that if it's occasional and leisure travellers making the judgements.