PGberkshire

They all fly to Mykanos/Rhodes etc with a premium cabin?

IAN-UK

I'll try again. There is no need to BA even consider armchairs in Euro-business. For starters it would reduce flexibility, for finishers the competition shows no sign of adopting that aberrant model.

Domestic air travel in the US follows a model very different to ours. For (even more) starters, you'll rarely see an empty seat in the "first" cabin.

As for the success of THY, I bow to your expertise.

ISTFlyer

I was speaking about the current climate.
The LH Group airlines, A3, AY is scheduled not to return at Gatwick.
TAP and Air Europa would compete with BA on some routes to Spain and Portugal, but how many of the premium travelers would want to fly via Madrid, Lisbon, or Porto when they are able to travel non-stop. Plus the premium travelers based in London are generally oneworld elites rather than *A or ST elites.

A very good comment to summarize the situation.

BrunswickSq

I'm in Sussex, and I seriously consider LGW>DUB> TATL to remove the cross London transfer from my schedule.

13901

To have "proper short haul seats" (à la TK, which has been mentioned in the thread) you'd lose approximately 3 rows of normal seats. Considering that those are usually Club Europe seats, it would mean that to install 4 TK-style armchairs would sacrifice 12 CE seats. If BA wants to remain at break even for every flight, then these 4 TK-style armchairs must cover the lost revenue for those 12 CE seats. Let's make them 10 CE seats because it's unlikely that they'll always be full. In other words, for BA not to lose any money vs what they do today those four seats must be always full and always sold at 2.5 times the average CE seat. Are you going to pay 2.5 times the average CE fare for a larger butt area? On a flight to Larnaca, maybe. On a flight to Brussels?

And this is before we get into the proper weeds of the thing. On top of my head I'm thinking: 1) what's the cannibalisation with normal CE going to be? Am I really expecting passengers to pay the usual CE fare if they were just given a seat and a meal while up front there's the fatter seat? If I call CE premium economy aren't I going to depress sales further? 2) are transfers going to be using the big seats and, if so, who? 3) Am I building a sub-fleet only for Larnaca-style flights? 4) Are Premium-Eco CE passengers allowed to use the CE loo? 5) what's happening to the trim of the aircraft? it's already butt heavy, now I've got 2.5x less passengers up front... 6) on arrival, do CE passenger get a bus and the Premium Eco CE passengers another? 7) CE passengers will want a premium bin for bags but that, on an A320, is hard to ensure... what do we do?

A simpler way forward would be to try and put longer routes on 788s. Your Larnaca, Athens, Istanbul, Moscow: leaving aside the C-19 issue, if sufficient cargo can be secured and you have enough volume, especially in Economy, then it might make a difference. If TK can do it...

rapidex

There is no max order, and with ww gone I would expect the Loi to fizzle out.

FlightDetective

Well, just to update you, Tigerair Australia no longer exists as of September 2020. The airline has been completely shut down. It was a 100% fully owned subsidiary of Virgin Australia, who recently went through administration and has now come out with new owners.

When it comes to Jetstar, it was founded by and is 100% fully owned by Qantas. This means you had full service Qantas owning budget carrier Jetstar, and full service Virgin Australia owning budget carrier Tigerair Australia. And good morning duopoly!

Qantas is one of the few examples of a legacy airline successfully setting up a low cost carrier and succeeding. You could argue that IAG is already doing something like that with its multi-brand strategy. BA is certainly in the premium segment, Aer Lingus by their own admission is a "value carrier", set half way between a full service and low cost (aka: they have a frequent flyer programme and business class transatlantic, but operate single class and buy on board in Europe), then you have Vueling which is low cost and Iberia which is somewhere around Aer Lingus.

Also, Qantas succeed because of market dominance, as they have the lions share of the corporate market. With airfares of A$1,600 (£880) return for business class on Sydney-Melbourne (1 hour 30 minutes) the norm, you can see why they make money. This is why an Avios redemption on Australian domestic business class is such good value as the normal prices are extortionate. I far prefer the BA pricing model for Club Europe as I can afford it, whereas in Australia there is no way I'd be paying such a high price.

I did my Masters thesis on the Australian domestic market, so I'm all over this area.

PGberkshire

Awesome, In my plan you'll end up at LGW, Veuling to DUB/Shannon then Air Lingus (Vueling Atlantic) to US.

volar

Assuming the cheapest seats on the aircraft are sacrificed, then on the basis of 3 rows of normal seats being needed it would be 18 of the cheapest economy seats that would be lost (along with the ancillary revenue these generate - baggage fees, seat reservation fees and BoB). That assumes the curtain would move to extend CE as needed, but once the CE cabin is maxed out at row 12 or whatever, then I agree it's then the cheapest 4, 8 or 12 CE seats being lost because no more can be created by moving the curtain. I'm not sure which is economically worse, but I am sure that somebody smarter than me at BA has done the sums and it clearly doesn't stack up. This is aside from the annoyance this setup would cause to a lot of gold members who appreciate the front row of CE for the extra knee room it provides, but who don't want to pay extra for it!

Agree, this would be the best solution for the longer CE routes and the old 'mid haul' routes.

flyertalker28120

BA is gonna have to go with the times, man.

Yeah, maintenance, cargo loads, and other factors may make it necessary to operate some continental flights with long-haul equipment. But there's little room to expand widebody flights on the mid-haul beyond today's level due to the fuel-efficiency considerations. (Particularly due to higher fuel consumption during takeoff, widebody equipment isn't fuel-efficient on flight under ~5 hours or so.)

This is both an issue of image/reputation for BA as well as one of environmental standards which are v unlikely to get loosened. It would be a slippery slope for IAG to fall behind LHG and AFKL in terms of average fuel efficiency.

13901

I'm not saying that widebody aircrafts are the answer; I was saying that they're an easier answer to Akoz's quest for a better premium experience. Then again, even from an environmental point of view, if demand for - say - Athens was high enough, a double-daily with 787s would be better than a 4-a-day with A321s wouldn't it? And they could use that famous waste-to-energy plant that Shell is allegedly building (what became of it?), carbon offset, say that the 787's still quieter and more efficient than the 767s that used to fly the route... The key questions are whether a) there are enough 787s (methinks not, at least not in a C19 free world) and b) if it's worth the money (again, I don't think so).

drwook

I hate to say things that I don't necessarily want to see happen, but if Vueling's main issue is brand recognition it wouldn't seem ludicrous to me to consider rebranding it as BA Connect / BA Express if they picked up a number of UK routes, or even look at rewriting the corporate structure (maybe make it a subsidiary of BA) to help the narrative.

Akoz

Just in the interest of clarity - there is not quest. I am generally happy with the pre-covid CE offering.

I was simply suggesting that coming up with a seat that is 1.5 the length and width of the current seat replacing the current front 3 rows and adding guaranteed food choice but keeping the rest the same could satisfy some people that seem willing to pay more, differentiating the product slightly while not reinventing the wheel.

13901

Sorry, I've been listening to "A Tribe Called Quest" all morning... I'd have written 'idea'.

flyertalker28120

No. On a per-seat basis, A321s are gonna win out vs. widebody equipment.

Fuel economy correlates strongly with the range an aircraft can fly. I you compare two aircrafts that are roughly from the same generation such as an A321neo and a 787-8, the one with shorter range is typically gonna be more fuel efficient on shorter routes. On a flight of 2000 nautical mi and above, the 788 can get down to a per-passenger fuel efficiency of 2.5 L/100 km. But on a route of 1500 nautical miles (that's LHR-ATH), its fuel consumption is waay higher whereas an A320neo/321neo is below 2.5L/100 km.

For the foreseeable future, both from a engineering as well as from a business perspective, it's not meaningful to use a lot of widebody equipment on routes such as LHR-ATH.

And we all know that pre-covid, BA was probably the airline in Europe with the largest incentive to user bigger but less fuel-efficient equipment. That's due to the fact LHR was so slot-restricted until covid came around. But actually, they gave in to the temptation very rarely. I know that one LHR-MAD flight per day (give or take) is using a widebody. But cargo is probably an important part of the equation there.