IAN-UK

Please let us know when you plan to launch Condescension 101

Concerto

No, I found it very interesting. In the delicate world of not going too far off topic one can learn a lot of new things here.

I think the explanation of why BA didn't keep the BMI brand alive it's quite plausible, although at the time I was sure they would keep the brands separate, for a while at least. Remember, BMI adopted a low cost model towards the end of its life, with BoB like BA (not to mention Air Berlin).
I would like to see BA return with a much better in flight product than previously, in economy anyway.

Nimrod1965

Me too.

Some fascinating discussions taking place here, thanks for all your input.

PGberkshire

And? Duopolies are about economic control. Doesn't matter if its 100 AOC's, as long as two parents companies are owning them and deciding commercial strategy its a 2 player race.

Jagboi

They could look at the Air Canada model. AC is split into 3 "airlines" if you will. There is mainline Air Canada, for the leisure routes and tourist market there is Air Canada Rouge. Rouge a dedicated subfleet, with different contracts and staff than mainline, but still uses the AC IT to sell tickets for example. It's effectively a LCC within AC. It offers economy and "Premium Rouge" on longer routes, which is basically WTP. Long routes are generally Canada to European secondary cities not served by Mainline. So places like DUB, EDI, BUD and NCE that can't support a mainline plane.

Finally, for the regional routes there is AC Express (Jazz). Jazz is actually a completely separate company that supplies services to AC under contract, so the staff are also on their own terms. However, it still says Air Canada on the plane and it uses the same website to sell tickets. This is a fleet of smaller planes that serve small cities/towns and generally connect those small cities to a mainline hub city (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto etc). Depending on the plane and route you will find both business class and economy cabins, except for the small turbo props that are economy only.

Regarding the better seating in CE, AC's model is similar to the US 3, in that there is a larger recliner seat. However, unlike the US 3, upgrades are more BA-like. I.e. not common at all. On major business routes like YYC-YYZ they do sell it with a large amount of O&D traffic at ticket prices typically 4-5X an economy seat. The J cabin on domestic routes is also like, CE n that is supports those who fly at the front for a TATL or TAPC and connect on to Canada or the USA on the domestic network.

In recent years AC has grown their USA-Asia and USA-Europe traffic substantially, and a better domestic J is needed to compete with the US 3 for the North American portion of the flight before going over an ocean. In many ways, I think this is what BA is competing against. I have no idea if BA was gaining or losing ground to AC for TATL travellers, it would be interesting to find out.

What might make sense is BA's short haul network being turned over to Cityflyer and operated on behalf of BA with connectivity like AC/Jazz for the connecting long haul passengers. BA could run their main TATL business and if they wished set up a LCC carrier at LGW for the leisure routes that change seasonally.