JHodgson0801

no it is not on the horizon at all it would not really work at BA with the many variables to contend with and the demographic of customers and the huge customer based. spend based earning benefits very few people and should not be introduced unlike the US we do not have such credit card schemes

stewaran

I Tend to agree, Been visiting Israel 3-4 times a year over the last 5-10 years and the BA services always felt full in every cabin, the fares LHR-TLV -LHR felt comparable to somewhere like Boston which i guess is one of the closest distance long haul routes.
There was always a lot of connecting traffic to and from the US, so i dont know how that worked out financially for BA.

One potential problem is that if your a regular on this route in club and they don't specifically advise the change before travel, they could end up with a huge amount of bad feeling that would be repair.

gpp1

Agreed. Looks as though VS are out altogether until September though

BONDY

Regarding the advice of the change, to be fair to BA, for my two current bookings I have received a quite comprehensive email. The emails explains the changes, acknowledges the differences and offers a 40% refund of the ticket cost. So, whatever other issues there are, bad feeling about not being told should not be one of them.

It's disappointing for sure and I was coincidentally looking at a couple of trips to the US late this year starting in Tel Aviv that have doubled in price for Premium Economy but with only Economy between London and Tel Aviv so I will have to think again about those options! Maybe prices will settle down over the coming weeks and we will get a better idea of where BA are intending to pitch their pricing longer term.

BONDY

davidcamp6

How do you make that out,? They are using a similar timescale to BA for resuming flights, they have just ended their daytime flights from LHR and reduced their schedule to link in with Delta so pax can easily get to the rebellious colonies.

Door5L

TLV was shorthaul back in the 90s when Euro 767s were used. Club and Euro Traveller were offered a full hot meal service and IFE was available (although on monitors throughout the cabin rather than seatback). And Cairo was a 747 route. TLV moved to 777s and longhaul cabins in the late 90s and also included a daily LGW 777/DC10 service for some time.

Although people moan about BA on the Cairo and Amman sectors, the flights are full. I�m not sure why you would fly on an A320 on these longer sectors if the competition offers wide bodied aircraft. 5hrs on a BA Neo will be truly awful.

mikebg

They have already generated a huge amount of bad feeling. They are going to lose a shed load of very heavy clients (there are a huge number of weekly commuters from London to Tel Aviv, 90% in business class and Premium Economy, and many slightly less frequent ones, like every 2-4 weeks - like myself) and their main competitor on that route, ELAL, now have aircraft with an excellent business class (similar to Club Suits), Premium Economy at least as good as BA's - some say better, and excellent crews. This is not the ELAL I abandoned for BA 9 years ago! They will have a very difficult time regaining that lost custom once it has moved elsewhere. Most of the regulars I know will be lost to BA forever.

expataus

I really want to echo what mikebg is saying. I've flown BA at least monthly for 10 years on this route, often in premium cabins that were almost always sold-out.

For the last few months, all of my travel has moved to LY and it's been surprisingly good. So, I'm shocked if this route had poor economics, at least in the premium cabins, and I can't imagine that they want to start competing with Wizz and Ryanair instead of El Al and Virgin Atlantic.

I won't miss 2024 BA, but I'll miss the memory of what BA meant to me during 2013-2023.

Finally, I really hope that the full-time staff who work out of Israel, some of them for decades, aren't about to be shown the door.

2358

And it�s over �1,000 to sit in an economy club Europe seat on an A321 for 5 hours? You need to be very keen for the 140 TP�s!

stifle

*80

2358

even worse!

orbitmic

Sadly, BA has been totally disengaging from virtually all markets except the US. Even many UK airports have almost completely lost local staff. Israel seemed a little secluded from this tendency for a while, but quite frankly, as much as I hate it, I can't imagine BA almost completely cutting ties with local staff in Israel too, and to be honest, in the US too before long.

Don't take me wrong, I very much dislike this choice of BA, but I just don't see any good reason why they wouldn't do in Israel what they have done elsewhere.

As for the broader point of whether the change will cost BA dearly or not, all I can say is if many of you who are indeed regular premium customers there are unhappy, then don't waste time writing about it - rather, vote with your feet once BA are back on the route. I have no doubt that BA will keep an eye on yields and loads. They will have not taken this decision lightly and they will have certain expectations as to what they will lose as a result of the proposed change and decided - at this stage at least - that this is the right move for them. If they see that the effect is much worse than they expected, they will certainly take notice.

I should add that I am less optimistic than msm2000uk on this being intended as a short term move. I completely agree on the fact that the change of equipment is due to the conjuncture and expected temporary decline in traffic, however, in my view, if this was intended as temporary for - say - one year or so, they would have indeed implemented the equipment change, but would have undoubtedly indicated that it was temporary (they don't), they would have alluded to the difficult current situation as a cause, and everybody would have understood it (instead, they mention the change as being in line with their other operations in the region), and they would not have bothered to reduce TP earnings, especially given the high proportion of very frequent flyers on the route which they realise perfectly well will be angry at such a move (why would you upset some of your best customers by temporarily reducing TP earnings for just a few months if you intend to return to long haul service and credit -- or indeed as noted elsewhere if you plan on replacing by a revenue system). This, in my view, has the hallmark of being intended as a durable decision.

lsquare

It's painful...I flew SFO-SIN every week from September to December 2022 in Y. Not easy to do...

😆😂🤣

​​​​​​​That's hilarious!

corporate-wage-slave

Looking at the fare buckets, there's nothing lower than D in Club (so �1274 return) and M in Traveller (�650 return). These are relatively expensive buckets, without the sales to support it. So I would expect fares to go lower, if the market requires that. It's not unusual after flights are entered or reconfigured in the system.

DoctorCopper

Is it the case the BA flights will stop in LCA for a crew change?

Doc Copper