elitetraveler

great rundown of where corporate planning goes off target

starlight

I thank Land-of-Miles and Bealine for their very informative comments and I think the prinicple problem is one of service - and it's lack.

To my mind, First simply does not feel 'special' and I have honestly had some dreadful crew members dealing with me and no, I am not rude: I always say Hello, I always smile, I always remember my p's and q's, and I NEVER use a call bell.

Yet, it the service just is not what it used to be - it simply isn't, I'm afraid and I am getting fed up paying the price of an F ticket for crap service - I have to say I have flown Business First with Continental and I though their level of service was vastly superior to First but they didn't have beds.

Can I just say, has anyone else noticed the tutts and stares you get if you don't want to eat the moment the plane takes off - this seems relatively recent (i.e. over the past couple of years) that the crew are overtly obvious in trying to get all F pax to eat at the same time.

I understand why but it is just another example of how the advertised product is not a reality.

Sorry, I guess I feel passionate about BA and especially First (and my mates will tell you I am mad about them - sad!) but even I am getting really p.....d about it.

elitetraveler

I have to say on my F flights - without exception -- they always stress that i can eat whenever i want - come back to me if i dont eat right away and ask me later on if i changed my mind.

pauldb

I'm afraid that's some way off the mark. £15m is the estimated cost to BA of miles earned by flying. £359m is the actual revenue received by selling miles to partners. IFRS requires the two types of liability to be recorded differently (any profit from selling miles at above cost of provision is recognised on redemption rather than sale).

I'm no accountant, but I think there is a little more information available here. Now-redundant UK GAAP required partner miles to be accounted for in the same manner, i.e. estimated cost, and on this basis from BA's reconciliation the deferred liability was £270m lower. So the estimated profit from the £359m mileage sale is £270m (75% margin - nice!), leaving the estimated cost as £89m.

Last point - the group's £270m profit breaks up into £112m for the "company" being BA Miles, and £158m for subsidiaries = AirMiles. So they have more deferred profit from partner AirMiles than BA Miles, presumably down to more partner AirMiles outstanding or higher margin/wastage if I have this right.

BAAZ

Yes! My previous F flight was an SFO-LHR two or three years ago where the FA sat down with me at the start of the flight to discuss how I wanted to organise my time (dinner first then film then sleep, or film then dinner, etc). No pressure to eat at any particular time. In contrast, last weekend on LHR-JFK in F I wasn't really offered a choice of timing, just the menu and then asked a few minutes later what I'd like, served near the start of the flight when ideally I'd have preferred it three hours later. Not so different from J in that respect.

And although the food and wine last week was much better than J is, I still have fond memories of being spoilt with Krug, beef tournedos with foie gras, etc. Maybe I'm being unfair because LHR-JFK is so short, but it was disappointing.

The Saint

I have posted before on the inconsistency of the F product. I had thought things were improving, but my last flight to JFK was (on a scale from 1 to 10) a 4.

Walk to Gate 23 in Victor Pier, then bussed to the aircraft. F cabin had 17 seats, 16 pax and 3 crew. IFE was broken. Given the crew to pax ratio, the meal took an age. CSD generally uninterested. Other to give me my menu, did not see him again until I went to find him to tell him that I really didn't think that a plane should be allowed to leave LHR with defective equipment.

Crew were pleasant, but overworked. Altogether is was a pretty ordinary experience. I was travelling with someone who had never travelled F before. After boarding, a crew member took his coat. He asked for some water, and the crew member said: "We have a system", referring to what I know is the routine of get pax settled then offer nuts and drink. But the way she said it was not particularly welcoming.

Contrast with a recent trip on LH through the First Class Terminal in FRA. It's a different world.

Although one of those people who has always flown BA, because of the uncertainty about hold luggage restrictions, I now have trips booked with LH, SQ and CX in F. We'll see how they compare.

BA or bust

I absolutely agree. My trips in F (albeit all in 777's) were good but my last trip in upper deck J beat them all. And it was all down to the crew!

My only consolation in this sorry tale is that as Wee Willie wields his axe my shares are going up... but I'd prefer the service levels to rise faster than the share price for a while. Cos we all know what happens to share prices eventually when your customers go elsewhere...

WHBM

Carving knives not allowed past secirity.

Teece

For once, an Urban Dictionary reference that you could use in front of the Mother-in-Law over Sunday Lunch.

number_6

LH is a great example of turning around a good but very quirky F product into something that is mainstream and with wider appeal. Quite astonishing changes at LH in some ways. So there is hope yet.

But for some flights F is not about service (at least for me); for other flights it is all about service. I prefer to fly AA F on some routes instead of BA F (despite having worse FAs, wine, food -- just about every aspect of the soft product) ... because AA has a better hard product (better seat, desk, bed, and for this route better lounge, airport facilities, ontime record, irregular ops). So there is more than one way to get F business; however it does vary by route. AA manages to keep the food/wine/service good enough to be not annoying, and wins with the other factors. So if AA can do it, BA should have an easy time of creating a new F that will wow us again.

SchmeckFlyer

I still like my idea (well, others have it too I suppose) of chauffering all paying F pax directly from their homes/businesses to the door of the aircraft, with boarding card waiting, luggage placed directly in the hold by hand, security and immigration standing by where necessary to do the required checks. BA could even role the various functions of gate agent, boarding card printer, security etc. all into one person to save costs even more. Possibly add a service to "pre-order" duty free items and have them delivered to the aircraft.

Upon landing, cars will be waiting at the gate to whisk the F pax off to their final destination. I would decrease the number of seats onboard and raise prices accordingly. It would save the cost to BA of building a ridiculous seperate terminal, and the lounge would not have to be nearly as fancy or large. The extra money could go to creating a truly amazing hard and soft product in the air, and BA could say to VS, "Yes, we do devote more to the experience in the air because we don't force our best customers to skulk around an airport all day." The cars do not even have to be Porsche or Mercedes (well, at least not at far flung destinations).

Singapore would finally be the one running away with their tails between their legs.

One can dream...

matthewuk

veering slightly off topic on such a good thread - sorry - but like to defend one of my favourite things on UA

Channel 9 is the best IFE in the industry imho (for the FT'er of course). Even my partner listens in sometimes...

It does stresss me a bit coming into ORD sometimes though when you are trying to work out how many of the planes ahead of you on approach are widebodies from Asia (the UA flight numbering helps out here - if you hear a couple of UA8xx in front, bank on a couple of hours at immigration!)

You know you're coming home when all the call signs change to 'Speedbird', 'Midland' and 'Easy' from 'Cactus', 'Frontier' and 'Air Force One'...

Can we have this on BA please!!!!

number_6

Several airlines did have air traffic control available on the IFE, and it was quietly dropped for 2 reasons: some anxious passengers causing trouble when they misunderstood something that they heard on ATC, and pilots objecting to pax listening in. On UA it is still at the captain's discretion, but most leave it on all the time, some have it off at "key" times.

As for the car to plane idea, LH is already doing this in FRA (most F fares include limo to the airport, HON status gets free parking at the airport in a valet lot and they even do oil changes and car washes for you; actually even IB provides this benefit in MAD for their Emeralds). LH assigns a PA to you in the F terminal, who does everything to do with your trip (and in practice almost everything that you want, even if not LH related, I've had them order flowers and make restaurant reservations as well as arranging Fedex pickup -- and they do it joyfully; of course staff outnumbers pax in the LH F terminal most of the time).

In LHR, CX provides a limo (within 100 mile radius of LHR) for all F fares (including discounted ones). VS does it for their "J" fare (though it is priced more like F than J).

BAHumbug

Out of curiosity do they do this for award fares ? I have this wodge of miles burning a hole in my pocket...

BAH

SchmeckFlyer

That is all wonderful, no doubt, and it is a shame BA does not offer something similar for its better and more loyal customers.

But I really mean cut out the airport entirely. Have a car bring the best customers directly from door to aicraft door: no terminals, no lounges, no check-in desks, no spas, no shops, no noodle bars, no waiting in queues ever. No ratrace. Just showing up at the aircraft (not the airport) 10-20 minutes before the doors close. This would be the essence of a seamless travel experience, because there would be no seams to speak of.

The only thing possibly better would be a private jet (and those don't have (pseudo)beds, excepting the BBJ of course).

Again, probably just a dream, because the logistics of getting such a scheme right would most likely be impossible for an organisation such as BA that has become addicted to cutting corners at every possible moment. (We need to have an intervention...)