Dave_C

I do think we need to go back to basics here.

Fundamentally, BA is a network carrier. Short-haul exists to shuttle people to and from London and onwards via the long-haul network. Yes, there's also a substantial portion of O&D traffic as well, but the money is made on long-haul. Evidence for this is quite clear - in 2019 39% of RASK was on the North Atlantic.

Currently, BA has a revenue problem. Companies mainly (but also individuals) can't fly the North Atlantic. I have no insider knowledge, but I suspect that 39% figure is probably closer to 1 or 2% at the moment.

Changing short-haul is going to make bugger all difference to the key financial metrics that BA or IAG have. Putting in 2x2 recliners as has been discussed ad infinitum is not going to make them sell more or less £3K returns from London to New York, or Amsterdam to Houston (for example).

All they can do at the moment is control cash burn to survive until they can start selling those seats again. Hence the truly awful sandwich boxes - I don't see them going anywhere.

Re-inventing short-haul will merely waste management time, take precious cash, and do nothing to move the needle.

flyertalker28120

Fully agree with the previous poster's comment.

In addition, I might add that the qualities or short-comings of the meal service are another thing that's particularly irrelevant. Catering comes up in a ton of other threads and it's come up ITT as well (see #10 as an example). But the fact is that it does not matter. The 60 or so percent of customers which don't travel for business care about the price. When they make the next booking, they remember how pleasant or unpleasant the F&B experience was last time but once again decide based on price. And the ~40 percent business customers mostly decide based on direct connections/carrier network. F&B doesn't really factor into their decisions, either.

RoyalSwazi

If a company chooses to commoditise its product then everything comes down to cost. There is no way BA can or should emulate Ryanair or Wizz - a big chunk of BA’s traffic have different demands. Not just premium classes, but connections and convenient airports cost more and are more complex to deliver.

Nobody knows what sort of travel pattern will emerge once we’re through this period, but demand for short haul is more likely to recover before longhaul. Speed & convenience are key selling points - fast track, lounges, priority bag delivery, power ports, functioning WiFi from gate to gate, ability to not having to get something to eat from the airport because you have not had time to eat in between meetings. Travellers should also be able to do almost everything in the app, cutting the need to waste time in queues, be they physical or on the phone.

All routes have some seasonality, leisure routes more so. Not many go to Mykonos in January for instance. If BA have a dedicated sub fleet for mid haul (Eg 4 hrs and up) plus premium shorthaul, they would need to be able to utilise it year round. Could Cairo, Moscow & Ibiza fill a CE cabin of roughly equal size?

BA need to differentiate themselves somehow from the competition. Some are willing to pay extra for a better experience - the challenge is to find a balance between cost vs benefit.

orbitmic

Brilliant way to lose a very significant share of your connecting traffic which accounts for roughly half of your long haul traffic...

alex67500

Vueling aren't even part of OW, can you imagine no TPs on European flights? Might as well start looking at other alliances!

13901

Again, the question is how many are these some and how much are they willing to pay. History - the BMI planes with lie-flat - seem to suggest that the answer is "not enough".

BA had 6 of them with a great business class seat (basically the same concept as Jetblue's Mint, or Qantas' news business. It was the only one in Europe to offer it on narrowbody service to Moscow, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Amman or Cairo; for a few, glorious months they also had it on Baku, Tbilisi, Yerevan. If you wanted to fly on any of these destinations on Air France, KLM, Alitalia, Lufthansa, Austrian or Finnair and it wasn't on a long hauler you had a NEK seat or the equivalent of said airlines.

Fast forward a few years and the A321 G-MED fleet was reduced from 6 to 4, and now it's been discontinued altogether.

Nimrod1965

Ah, thank you for the update. I haven’t flown BA this year and my last experience of economy BA was BoB in 2019. If I’d been more active on here this year I would probably have known this but Was doing other stuff.

Nimrod1965

Hopefully this won’t be the case then. I’d like to see BA go back to European service as it was in the days of the 757 (but with Club) - comfortable seats, plenty of room, proper food with real cutlery. Somehow doubt this will happen though as the cost is probably too much. However, for those of us who would be willing to pay a bit extra for such service, it would be welcome.

Let’s face it though, most people these days just want a cheap bus ride and don’t care about comfort. I know too many people who say “just want to get there, don’t care about being comfortable, more money to spend on beer and food when I arrive”.

flyertalker28120

I really doubt they are gonna make money from a premium short-haul product.

What differentiates BA on the short haul from an LCC is its powerful network. This year aside, they can promise a big corporate client to whom a particular route is essential more than one rotation Monday mornings and Thursday and Friday afternoons. They can ticket more complicated itineraries than an LCC. They can interline. Due to their big network, it's easier for them to promise a certain quality of IRROPS handling. They can leverage the fact that they've got the best slots at several major airports.

But they can't really deliver a much better seat or cabin product. They can't even deliver a premium lounge such as the Galleries First and Concorde room--it's not financially viable without the long-haul business. No corporate client is gonna pay an extra GBP 40 per leg for a better meal in short-haul C. BA knows as much and has even reduced the size of the galleys. IMO, the short-haul C exists for the most part that high-value customers don't have to rough it out with general pax behind the curtain during feeder flights. They don't have to haggle over overhead bin space as much, they get out of the plane first, and they got slightly more personal space which facilitates working on a laptop.
But a premium C seat such as the one which JetBlue puts into some narrowbodies for its Mint class? It's just not gonna work for European short-haul! Hardly anybody is gonna pay for it considering virtually all routes are below 4h block time or 3.5h flight time.

Dover2Golf

You define a duopoly as four?

Interesting.

RoyalSwazi

funkydrummer & 13901 This was my point exactly- I believe speed & convenience rather than space & luxury should be the main separator from the LCCs.

PGberkshire

They can't even deliver a premium lounge such as the Galleries First and Concorde room



Thats because no one at BA knows what good customer service or design is. I get the impression there is a lot of sheltered yes men/women who don't know whats good if it hit them in the face.

Dated, tired and old fashioned. I just wish someone at Waterside would buy a design magazine (or even an interior design) and understand what style looks like. If they can't do that maybe stroll over to T3 and look at Qantas or Cathay lounge for some ideas.

I hate to say, its not overly aspirational is it. The food isn't great - and because of that I really only care about the alcohol in the Lounge - and sadly you need to drink a-lot to burn the images of those terrible seats from your memory.

13901

I agree - having power ports (not just the USB thingy but a full-blown port) and WiFi are, in my view, more valuable than other things. When I used to fly CE a lot for work I don't remember ever eating on the plane, just a drink/coffee and then it was laptop time. If forced to choose, I'd trade the meal with a voucher for Wi-Fi that can support my work VPN.

PGberkshire

Its two companies with two brands each. so yes it is.

BrianDromey

I happen to think that BA offer quite an acceptable product and I suspect that the majority of posters haven't tried Vueling, BA or easyJet for quite some time. Even bronze membership makes a huge difference. Being able to select seats at D-7 means a good chance of an Exit row on A320s or A321s, less so on the A319s.

They could, but as already discussed upthread BA's CASK is equivalent to Vuelings. Im not sure what the obsession is with hiving off LGW to Vueling on this website. Why would BA voluntarily give up a big presence at LON's second-largest airport to another IAG op-co?Assuming that normal times resume. Even if they don't why would Vueling do any better at LGW than BA?
Considering the better website, call centres, premium check-in queues, fast-track security, BA branded lounges, lower density cabins (1-2 fewer rows per aircraft), Club Europe and Executive Club the customer is getting a to of bang for that buck. The better revenue market that is LON compared to Vueling bases and brand recognition makes the Vueling argument a non-starter. Before we even consider that Vueling is an EU, rather than a UK airline which it might need to be after Brexit.