GB AIRWAYS: love or loathe?

Old Mar 1, 2006, 2:55 pm
  #1  
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GB AIRWAYS: love or loathe?

To refresh your memory, GB are our "friends" with the flight number range BA6800-6999, who are "based at London Gatwick operating flights to the southern Mediterranean, including Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Portugal, Spain, Canary Islands, Malta and Northern Africa."

Without doubt, they augment the British Airways shorthaul network considerably, feeding an otherwise route-mal-nourished Gatwick and even braving the big, bad north with services out of Manchester - a city BA Mainline only deems worthy of connecting feeder flights to LGW or LHR.

On paper the franchise agreement must have seemed a dream relationship in the making, but have we reached the point where it would be better for BA to say "look - I know you're upset - it's not you, it's me"?

Whilst GB have the route network, British Airways is a (mostly) reliable, repected, scheduled airline... should it maintain an alliance with a franchise partner whose comprehension of "sheduled" is at least three schedule changes to your summer holiday flight, followed by a route withdrawal?

My fear is that while GB operate as BA they are seriously damaging the BA brand - particularly on holiday/chav routes that we're competing with the youngsters such as EZ on...

FYI, a brief snippet of the last few months in the life of GB AIRWAYS:

Feb 28th commercial policy FEZ route withdrawal summer 2006 schedule
Feb 10th commercial policy VLC route withdrawal summer 2006 schedule
Feb 3rd 46 schedule changes to summer 2006 schedule
Jan 24th 42 schedule changes to summer 2006 schedule
Jan 17th 24 schedule changes to summer 2006 schedule
Dec 22nd 158 schedule changes to summer 2006 schedule

And it all started around Dec 15th with well over 200 schedule changes to, you guessed it the summer 2006 schedule


For fairness (read: biased comparison and point-making), in the same period:

BA Mainline:

Dec 15th commercial policy LHR-MEL route withdrawal effective March 27th

BA CitiExpress/Connect:

27th Jan commercial policy MAN-OSL route withdrawal effective March 6th

BA Loganair:

none

BA Sunair:

Jan 9th commercial policy AAR-BRU route withdrawal effective 16th Jan

BA Comair:

none
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:00 pm
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Surely mainline must have made schedule changes in the same period - the Kangaroo flights seem to jump around a bit? GB's changes don't look great though.

Leaving that point aside I'm quite fond of GB. They offer a superior service in both cabins , often with nicer staff. Odd policies on blocking seats out - families ahead of Golds = upset Swanhunter.
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:09 pm
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Well I always enjoy the way they deliver the BA product - Club Europe in particular. HOWEVER they've just messed up a weekend I had booked in INN with a summer schedule change that seems to have come into effect on or around Feb 23rd

Original plan : arrive INN 1010 Sat, leave 1705 Sun ... quite a respectable length of time at the destination.

Revised plan : arrive INN 0920 Sat, leave 1005 Sun ... just over 24hrs at the destination.

I'm still going ahead as, apart from anything else, I already have non-refundable hotel reservations, but it is a disappointing change to how the weekend originally shaped up

Last edited by Steady-EDI; Mar 1, 2006 at 3:15 pm Reason: typo
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:31 pm
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Originally Posted by smashmouth
FYI, a brief snippet of the last few months in the life of GB AIRWAYS:

Feb 28th commercial policy FEZ route withdrawal summer 2006 schedule
smashmouth - where did the info come from for the Fez withdrawal? I checked the GB Airways website, but no info there I could find.
I'm booked to go to Fez with them.
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:37 pm
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Add some small changes to the mainline MAA schedules. Shocking...

I can only agree with you, Smashmouth. You can immeidately predict how a conversation will span when it begins with the immortal words "I've just received an email from you...." Occasionally, it's about a change to an AA flight (usually only a couple of minutes) but, 95% of the time, it's an unfortunate punter booked on a GB flight. And you're right, GB's shenanigans are wrecking customer trust in BA. Who needs wildcat strikes when you have GB Airways schedule planners?

On the occasions that I have booked H*tl*n* tickets for the family to Crete and Marrakech, I have only done so on the basis that they are fully prepared for a 24hr schedule change. The family left for Crete as they expected, but arrived back in LGW some 10 hours later than when originally booked. The northern contingent of the family had their handy direct flights from MAN to Marrakech routed via LHR instead. A 100% failure rate. Not the end of world, I accept. But to have it happen with such regularity is mind boggling.

Now that EZY are sending their planes to Morocco, it will be interesting to see GB's reaction. They are usually not too keen on a fight as shown by their farces in VLC, OPO and MJV.

Originally Posted by Swanhunter
Surely mainline must have made schedule changes in the same period - the Kangaroo flights seem to jump around a bit? GB's changes don't look great though.
I am not aware of any other scheduled airline in existence that makes as many changes as GB. Any minor adjustments to Oz are miniscule compared to the total re-adjustments that GB will make.

GB Airways are universally despised by those people who have to service their bookings, and this is only heightened when IB also cancel VLC - only to offer pax a reasonable re-route option via Barcelona, FREE OF CHARGE!!!! GB will not let you re-route unless you pay the extra spondulicks!
 
Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:38 pm
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I'm not happy about the withdrawl of CE from MAN You haven't mentioned that
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:39 pm
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Originally Posted by BlackBerryAddict
smashmouth - where did the info come from for the Fez withdrawal? I checked the GB Airways website, but no info there I could find.
I'm booked to go to Fez with them.
from the BA intranet:

Key Message
GB Airways have cancelled the following service: BA6928 (LGW-FEZ-RAK-LGW) and replaced by BA6922 (LGW-RAK-LGW) between 26 May 2006 and 29 September 2006.

Advice for customers
- The following commercial policy can be applied to affected customers as stated:

Commercial Policy

The following service has been cancelled:
BA6928 (LGW-FEZ-RAK-LGW) and replaced by BA6922 (LGW-RAK-LGW) between 26 May 2006 and 29 September 2006.
Passengers travelling to and from LGW to RAK or FEZ will be re-accommodated on to the new flight, BA6922.
Passengers travelling FEZ-RAK will be offered no alternative.

Passengers travelling to FEZ can choose from the following options:

If you wish to travel to your original destination, you may re-book outside of the above dates subject to availability. Please note that between 26 May 2006 and 29 September 2006 there will be no onward travel provided between RAK and FEZ.
Passengers may choose to rebook for no additional fee onto the LHR-CMN service during this period, subject to availability, and then arrange their own onward travel from CMN to FEZ.
Conditions
a) Travel must be completed within ticket validity.
b) The return flight, if applicable, can be re-booked at the same time, and no extra fare is payable.
c) Passengers transferring to the CMN services must travel in the same cabin as originally booked.

All passengers can choose the following 2 options:

If you choose not to travel to your original destination, you may re-book on a British Airways or franchise flight to an alternative destination, subject to availability, with any additional fare to be paid by you.
Conditions
a) Where the new fare is lower, the difference will be refunded.
b) Travel will be governed by the fare rules applicable to the new booking.
d) The return flight, if applicable, can be re-booked at the same time.

If neither of the above options are acceptable to you, you may claim a refund. Refunds are available within a year from the original flight.
Conditions
The refund will be credited to the original form of payment.
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:41 pm
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deleted as repeating the same info as above.
 
Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:49 pm
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Apart from their schedule changes (and abandonment of the LGW-OPO route), my main criticism is that when things go wrong with GB, they go spectacularly wrong- delays can run into many hours (e.g. my last OPO flight was delayed from 1300 to past midnight). They clearly use their fleet to the full, with little contingency. I guess that's the price you pay for competitive fares.

On the plus side, their cabin service is good and seems consistently better than BA mainline (although of course it's a considerably smaller crew staff and therefore easier to maintain standards).

On the whole, I love them, rather than hate them and I think the savvy traveller will understand why things are like they are. On balance probably doesn't affect BA's reputation.....it's much more damaged by the stupid annual summer disruption.
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:53 pm
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thanks smashmouth and bukhara - I think I'm ok as I'm travelling in October - assuming they reinstate the service as is planned now.

Worrying though that they don't put this stuff on their website, but just on the BA intranet.
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 3:59 pm
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Originally Posted by BlackBerryAddict
Worrying though that they don't put this stuff on their website, but just on the BA intranet.
It's an internal communication and is meant to provide info for the staff to pass onto the customers.

BA is very effective in notifying the trade, staff and public of any news updates.

I would be very careful if I were a serving staff member who was posting internal communications on the world wide web.

Yes I still wear my BA PANTS!

B
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 4:09 pm
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Originally Posted by Brian_1
I would be very careful if I were a serving staff member who was posting internal communications on the world wide web.

Yes I still wear my BA PANTS!

B
well seeing as my above post was edited sufficiently so that only the information already in the public domain was published, I don't feel there's any great threat pending!
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 4:10 pm
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Originally Posted by Brian_1
It's an internal communication and is meant to provide info for the staff to pass onto the customers.
They don't have to put the whole commercial advice on the GB website - but they're happily announcing new routes on it, so why not schedule changes which (temporarily) drop destinations?

I'm not disputing the fact that BA communicates well with its customers. And as it turns out I'm (hopefully) not affected by this. It's just for my piece of mind, being alarmed by the initial message which just said Fez was to be dropped.

In fact, I just checked the BA website, where the info is posted - very good ^ . Should have BA first

BBA
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 4:33 pm
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I think GB Airways are great I have only had good experiences with them. People often compare GB favourably with BA mainline? services on the board.
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Old Mar 1, 2006, 4:57 pm
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I think GB airways are great too... in fact I wish they did ALL euro services out of LGW so we could get some proper service on board!
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