Lomapaseo

In the long run in order for the airlines to make a profit they need to fill planes and give the passengers what they want for service.

Shure, the RyanAirs and Frontiers can come up with some draconian measures and still make money, but the big guys will sell service as well as a seat

allturnleft

Interesting to see Wizz Air and Ryanair take on the challenge

It seems to me they are sending out the wrong message putting money before safety

You can guess how effective the UK quarantine is going to be!

Just stay alert and you will be fine!

Are there any role models in the Industry

I hear emirates test passengers?

Qatar are offering free flights to NHS workers....

What exactly are BA doing to take on the challenge

bisonrav

There's a big point being missed here. Structurally, what has changed is that companies are being forced to work remotely, and a lot of very rapid infrastructure building and capability is happening. We're also learning how to do it effectively. Covid 19 has precipitated a change in business behaviour which is extremely profound.

Business travel will reduce massively post Covid. For three reasons.

1) It is essentially impractical on health and safety grounds now, and because of stringent quarantine requirements on entry and return.
2) Companies will be strapped for cash coming out and the travel budget is an obvious target for savings.
3) A period of time without much travel will demonstrate that benefits of being somewhere rather than using Teams or Skype are marginal.

This isn't to say business travel will be zero, but it's going to be very much more low level. There are some things you can't do remotely, but a hell of a lot you can. You can even get things shipped next day from almost anywhere in the world, so for example buyers don't have to be physically at a meeting to sample items, they can have them shipped over. What we are finding now is that we can cope with most business activities remotely with a bit of ingenuity, and that video conferencing is practical for pretty much anyone with an internet connection. I can even view in real time a streamed image of someone walking around a factory with a go-pro strapped to their chest, so I can even do audits of practices and processes in my pyjamas*, the same way as I would physically on a walk-around. And even sometimes without getting up. I'm saving a lot of time, and I like it to be completely honest.

This leaves BA and other full service carriers with a problem. Their overhead model and offer structure is based on the idea of a business travel element as a major income stream. The LCCs are based on consumer travel, which subject to some sort of normality can and probably will return more strongly (when we get past (1) above). It's anyone's guess how BA will react to that, but it's not going to be about laying on more champagne and free Gucci PPE in F.

So if I'm going to get my own crystal ball out, flying will become much less frequent and very consumer orientated. With all that implies. Interesting times.

*the implication I routinely perform audits in my PJs is untrue - for one thing I don't wear PJs, so I would have my modesty protected only by metaphorical garments. But of sufficient comedy value not to edit away. Not that there's much to see anyway.

13901

It all depends on the kind of business.

As far as I can tell the Flyertalk crowd is made mostly of consultants, finance workers and people in sales. With the partial exception of consultants, there's little need for any of the other two categories to travel IMHO.

I work in a company that has a coding arm, an engineering (hardware installation-field testing) arm and, as it's inevitable, sales. Travel, in the pre-Covid world, was split 10-30-60 (geeks-engineers-slickers). We are global, with a focus on Asia, so we started being impacted by Covid way back in January and we've effectively stopped flying (but for life-or-death situations authorised by the leadership team). What we've found out is:

1) sales is not being impacted by the impossibility of doing face-to-face or trade events. The numbers are showing it: for those parts of the economy that aren't being affected by the Covid outbreak, sales are actually progressing more or less as they meant to. Even Japanese and Korean customers are slowly embracing Teams. The part of the business that looks after aviation is screwed, but that hasn't got a lot to do with being unable to travel. And, dare I say it, some how realising how inefficient the previous model was.
2) field activities are being impacted enormously. There's a backlog in activities and places like China, where domestic flying has re-started, have shown an immense spike in our activities there. The engineers are just running around like ants on PCP (quote from an engineer).
3) on the geeky side, travel is mostly to be on-site during big developments or go-live activities. None are planned at the moment, so no need for it, but if there were we'd be in trouble.

So, going forwards, based on my very limited experience, I'd say that we'll have more engineers, technicians, those working on 'real' assets than suit-and-ties. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'll be unpopular for saying that, but the amount of money wasted, and CO2 emitted, on jollies needed some radical re-thinking. The same applies for commuting.

Dan72

I don't disagree that there will be a shift away from business travel, but I think it's overstated and a lot of it will be temporary. Of the three reasons you give for the shift above, only one, ie 3 (increasing awareness of utility of virtual meeting), is likely to hold true beyond a couple of years.

In respect of the more enduring reason, ie 3 utility of virtual meetings, this is far from novel learning. Skype, zoom etc have been around for a while, and at a time that business travel grew exponentially. I don't see that they will revolutionise business travel, if they haven't already. Yes, more businesses will have to try and experience the benefits of these platforms, but their limitations are known and remain the same. When businesses can send people on business travel, I'm sure they will.

Corporate entertainment, a big part of business travel, is not one that can be covered off by virtual meeting activity. There is also the argument that post-pandemic shifts towards increased home/remote working, may increase the need for regular meeting/travel, to promote collaboration, team working and otherwise address the limitations of remote working.

Finally, we have been here before, albeit in very different circumstances, and the changes foreseen are never quite as revolutionary as people speculate.

Saint4805

Meanwhile back in the real world, supermarkets still allow customers to pick up loose fruit and vegetables from large crates and put them back for other customers to buy.

LondonElite

Some amusing thoughts indeed...

DYKWIA

I assume you're referring to the ME3 when you say "Big Guys"?

fripperies

Anyone planning for the future of anything that occurs in a context they don't control really has to model multiple scenarios ranging from optimal (e.g. effective mass vaccination reduces Covid-19 to a background disease within 2-3 years) to worst case (e.g. Covid-19 mutates successfully and remains lethal and highly transmissible for the indefinite future). Extrapolating from the current situation on the assumption it's going to become the new normal isn't prediction, it's speculation. I'm so glad I'm not an airline CEO.

Sailbot3310

Not sure what this has to do with BA other than a few of your guesses having 'BAEC' or 'Club Kitchen' thrown in. Any change in policy would likely come not form BA, but from regulators and thus apply to all airlines.

I see some of what you said transpiring - e.g needing to request permission to go to the bathroom. I don't see things like 'Aisle seats being sold for a premium'.

Ultimately, when flying initially resumes it'll be very light load so it's probably quite safe. Once the flights get north of 50% occupancy then risk will likely increase too.

cameramaker

I think its likely that there’ll be a reduction in business travel, but not to the extent that some people are predicting.
A lot of sales and business operations may be continuing with little impact because of relationships which have already been established and goods/services of lower value generally don’t require as much investment in the relationship as multi million deals.
The very frequent travellers will travel less as there’ll be more scrutiny around each trip and some trips of lower utility will likely get canned.
The semi frequent travellers will probably see a much lower impact as they’re likely to be using remote tools anyway and so their trips are likely to be very necessary anyway.

BA still need to maintain their average revenue per seat, so degrading premium cabins isn’t really going to work. They don’t have much wriggle room down the back due to the competitive forces of the LCCs.
We may well see fewer flights to business heavy and leisure light destinations and a further shift in slot allocations at Heathrow to leisure routes, so one of the umpteen Frankfurt rotations might get shifted to a Greek Island money printer.

bisonrav

The difference between future and past for travelling to meetings is very much that the excuse that the technology isn't very good has just dissolved. Actually most of us are finding it works really well, But I'm not saying that all business travel will stop, just a very large proportion of it that will skew the balance away from this segment being as significant. Scrutiny on cost is anyway going to be a fact of life when we don't have to quarantine for 14 days on arrival and return.

It's interesting from a point of view of risk management generally. What really changes things is not usually the risk you did anticipate, but those you didn't - this is true in everything in life - and although pandemic planning was a big vogue 15 years ago, it ended up being rather discounted after SARS didn't really have a huge impact. CV19 is when everything went off the scale and defences are down anyway. So it wouldn't have been on many risk registers, it would be interesting to look at the corporate risk management section of the BA annual accounts to see if they note it and what their response was supposed to be.

muscat

If food and drinks are pre-delivered to your seat, why do the planes even need cabin crew? You’ve probably got more chance of dying from covid than in an air crash, but I’ll allow one to open the emergency doors.

ISTFlyer

The cabin crew is there for your safety, their main purpose is not serving meals.

T8191

Some interesting/contentious general discussion here about the way ahead. I defer completely to those discussing Business travel, about which I know nothing.

However, as a Leisure-only traveller, I don't fully share the negative views expressed upthread. Yes, some pax will indeed find themselves somewhat cash strapped in the near term, but that will surely recover as lock-down is relaxed. And the population in general will surely still want their holiday in the sun somewhere? I would suggest that many, if not most, will accept the "New Normal" as the necessary penalty for being able to get away ... and only a modest proportion will regard the airport/flight experiences as a major factor in their decisions. The option of a week in the sun v. a week in UK weather is likely IMO to continue to drive Leisure demand to destinations world-wide.

Speaking personally, it's the destination that's the driving force for our holiday planning. Getting there as BAEC Gold, in J or F, is the icing on the vacation cake, but those aspects are secondary. Remove some of the 'pleasures' of travelling, but we would still want to be in the USA, Caribbean or South Africa for a couple of weeks. The journey is a very small proportion of the whole.