stargold

AF only has 4 seats in F per aircraft, and I believe most of these are taken by paid F customers. FFP redemption for AF F is impossible unless you are top tier on Flying Blue, in which case it is an extortionate number of miles (350k miles one-way (!) for Paris-Tokyo). There are day-of-travel paid upgrades from J available, which range from EUR 1000 to EUR 2500+ depending on flight and duration, and (at the lower end) might be the cheapest way to travel in AF F.

Basically, they have a small number of F seats for which most customers have to pay handsomely one way or the other. The lengths they go to make the product exclusive and utterly top notch means that, for those who can pay, it is actually a special experience that seems worth the price tag. And the very small cabin means they don't need to sell many tickets to make the whole thing work.

But I fully accept that this has been the product of a long-term strategy around completely different business model from most other airlines, and it would be more or less impossible for both the product itself and the market for it to suddenly change overnight this way, even if the airline wanted to.

gustavmahler

European carriers aside, all the carriers with top F products offer it to LHR as one of a handful of routes, don't they. I wonder why BA don't think they could do the same to all these places. To your list, would you add DXB, SFO and MIA (and maybe even LOS, which I believe is always very full up front) too? Like you say, though - if they could, they would!

lost_in_translation

I think CWS's point is BA have decided they aren't going to target making material profits from F itself, but instead use it as an overflow cabin to J and a carrot for frequent fliers which they can upgrade people into to sell another seat. This is also what, e.g., US airlines do more explicitly. I do agree with you that BA of all airlines globally (along with, perhaps, SQ or similar) should be best placed to actually make money selling F travel if anyone can these days. I still can't help but feel BA have ended up in a weird half-way house scenario which doesn't really make a lot of sense.

13901

I'd like to try to answer you both with my views in a single shot, let's see if it works.

You are perfectly right in saying that there are other airlines that have a great F-class product.

But, and here's the kicker, it doesn't mean that it makes money. I have a friend who works in the high end clothing industry, and they have a shop in one of those London streets where Arab billionaires go park their Lambos. The margins out of that shop aren't as high as other branches but they can't not have it. So they suck it up and do it. There can be Airline X whose First loses money, but in the grand scheme of things they believe it's worth having it because of marketing/aspirational/prestige value and therefore keep it. BA isn't in this kind of way of thinking. I remember former BA CFO (of Keith Williams' era) saying to us employees that we needed to go into a mindset of being profitable in every market in order to keep the airline healthy (those were the days when SH was losing £150m a year). I've never seen the data myself, but the expectation is that routes need to have a certain ROIC (exception apply for start-up), and the airline needs to have a certain ROIC. It goes without saying that you can't carry a sustained loss on such a large part of the airplane if you want to reach that target.

Then there's another, more nuanced, variation on the theme. This is where the airline doesn't lose money on First, but doesn't quite make too much either. For example, let's say that Airline Y makes a 10% net profit on their average seat, and let's assume that it's (I'm throwing numbers at random here) 15% for Business but only 5% for First. Maybe they'll do something to get it a notch higher (say to 7%), but they might be happy of where they're at. First doesn't hurt the bottom line, customers are happy, investors are happy and Bob's your uncle. Now, this is where LH, AF, ANA are or so my crystal ball tells me. And I think this is also where BA's at, in its current concept for First. Could they invest more? Could they, for instance, plunge about £100m plus another £5/10m per year to turn the SAA into a BA First Class Terminal, inclusive of nice cars driving you to the plane, cigar lounge and bar where you can sample the finest vinegar with an ABV that passes for English champagne? They could, surely, but I suspect that the extra cash will not turn into more returns, thus depressing the ever-important ROIC. Because if there was such an opportunity...they'd have done it. Honest.

And this is where the crux of the problem is. BA's 2019 ROIC was, from top of my had, 15%. IAG's wasn't far behind. The investment community expects that to be in that region in order to keep investing into the company and they will not like anything that changes it. I've stopped listening in to investors' calls because they're beyond boring but the questions, without fail, were always around costs and margins. I don't know why investors in other airlines don't expect the same from them (ANA, LH, AFKL etc all had lower margins than IAG in 2019 if I remember well). And I've got no clue on how to "change" your investors in such a way that, when Delta Airlines posted record profits and margins (still lower than IAG's in % terms if I remember well... but I need fact-checking) and awarded a massive bonus to their employees, a bank executive was quoted as saying "That [the employee bonus] is the price of investing in Delta" but my pet theory is that if the City was happy with a few point less from IAG then we'd have better treated staff and, perhaps, a First Class terminal.

aahjnnot

Looking at this review, I'm afraid that the hard product changes we're seeing really don't work for me.

I have never paid anyone to lock me in a cupboard with a television set. On the other hand, I regularly pay good money to sit in a crowded bar or restaurant with some good company.

I have never bothered to watch a movie on a plane (or in a hotel for that matter). The experience will always be sub-par compared with Netflix on my home TV. But the first time I tried buddy dining in the sky was a revelation - and I have only ever wanted to fly First since.

I may be an outlier, but if I had my way, I'd ditch the suite doors and replace the entertainment system with a small library. Then I'd concentrate on developing the shared experience for couples and small groups - who, in my experience, make up a significant proportion of premium travellers.

VSLover

i do not pay to sit in first to hear a bunch of people chatting over a meal!

but i agree with you about the door situation--i never really had a desire for doors and find it a bit of a gimmick in a seat like this. something like the etihad A380, SQ new F or EK new F, doors make sense--and if the doors come at the expense of space/width then its a no from me. but i still have not flown this new 777 seat yet so will reserve judgement until my flight to JFK next month bc from appearances, there is a lot i really like about this.

Flexible preferences

The screen offset from the seat is annoying. How could they make an error like this?

Howard Long

Perhaps I'm a little jaded, but I find private jet lounges to be pleasant enough but not places I want to spend much time in. They tend to be quite basic and soulless.

That's part of the point of flying private, you don't want to have to hang about wasting a couple of hours, you want to turn up and go. IME, about 80% of the time I find I'm the only one in there: one thing's for sure, they are quite exclusive! At smaller airports, it's not uncommon for these lounges to be shared with GA crew.

ermis177

There is a market for a proper F class. I can’t believe that LH and AF has managed to keep a decent F product while they were both profitable and BA can’t. BA doesn’t want to. Panini in CE, £4,5 wine in F, running out of choices in premium cabins from row 1 or 2 and much more. It’s not a secret that the airline has focused much more on profitability rather than the customer experience. We all know that. I totally agree that BA F is pretty much CW plus. But that’s cause BA decided to not customers...

bafan

I can’t see the point of the door either, but I do watch movies, so think a good screen and film offering are important. That said, I also agree with you on the buddy seat - I loved my A380 First experience, dining with the other half - though we enjoyed the (long ditched) tasting menu with paired wines.

I guess this all goes to show that whatever they do, they’re never gonna please everyone…

Cap'n Benj

F was miles better in the good ol days, esp BA F!

Ive been on LX (albeit 10 years back now) and LH a couple of years back and they were lovey ways to fly. Outside of a few frills, they ultimatley weren’t that much better than BA.

Certainly not better enough to justify a connection LH F terminal or not. I’ve not considered either again over BA direct

Howard Long

IMHO this all goes back to lack of innovation, lack of reinvestment, and "in our DNA" cost cutting in favour of short term shareholder value.

BA's F product hasn't changed fundamentally for 25 years. I well remember when nothing else touched BA F for about a decade, nobody else offered 180 degree lie flat beds, instead deep la-z-boy style deep recliners were the MO in F. As a result, it was exceptionally rare to find BA F being deeply discounted, because the demand was there.

Over the intervening years, other carriers have caught up and continue to innovate, leaping ahead. Meanwhile BA has been doing little more than tweaking the same product.

The same can be applied for Club World, jumping ahead of competitors 20 years ago, but then sitting on their laurels while competitors caught up and leapt ahead. While BA have finally woken up, but unlike 20 years ago, the Club Suite isn't really leaping ahead, it's just catching up.

GBOAC

The lack of blinds and blue lighting does seriously detract.
Thought. Given the reduction in size of the F-cabin on other 777s, why have they not salvaged the window and lighting and installed in the new aircraft?
Even if the refurb program on the existing fleet was not far enough advanced, surely the could have pinched the parts from withdrawn 747s (even before the mass fleet extinction there were a number retired during 2019-early 2020)?
The parts could then have been shipped to boing and installed, or installed as soon as the new aircraft arrived at CWL

gustavmahler

TheFlyingCyclist How late do you reckon you can turn up at IAM before departure? Annoingly in May there's just the early flight, so ideally we'd stay at the hotel as late as possible.

Cap'n Benj

The fact that AF and LH run so few F seats (as a whole, not per cabin) suggest it’s a tiny market.

The scale suggests its run more as a halo product than an actual profit centre, it’s certainly the case for the ME3, well 2 I guess as QR don’t properly bother with F

There are very few routes that can support a proper F service, esp as the Elite now all fly private