terpfan101

to those who complain about BA's first, may I ask why you continue to fly in first on BA? It seems like you're better off flying Club World instead as there isn't much of a difference, and the fare is significantly lower. If more of you are booking CW seats then they will be overbooked and more opups. Maybe if fewer people are paying for first BA will wake up and get the message...after all consumers vote with their pockets.

Land-of-Miles

This is not how Large Company Management (especially not BA) works. BA will interpret a fall off in revenue F traffic as confirmation of their own (rather convenient) view that there is effectvely no longer a market for F. They will then phase out F and move to a 3 class (effectively 2 classes, with 2 different seat types in Y) configuration thus allowing them to further reduce staff numbers/increase seat density and simplify the product offering even more. They will then spout some BS about "responding to PAX demand".

I have been expecting the demise of F for the last 18 months, I think it will be interesting to hear what BA say about F when they launch the new J product. Last time around the block (at the launch of the Dusk seat), F had a bit of a "Changing Rooms" makeover with some new seat covers/cushions and some tacky wood effect applique to the cabin interior. The current F product is almost 10 years old. During this time other airlines have been developing their F offering, while BA has been killing their own.

My view is if you really want to experience an F offering fly F (or even J) with a quality Asian Airline (e.g. CX).

gunnar

So, do you expect BA to be able to control the traffic on the M25 or in central London as well? I think unless you have a police escort and/or a helicopter your scenario is just not possible.

I think the LH F experience flying from FRA is as close to seamless as you can reasonably expect. Being able to completely bypass the normal airport terminals really makes flying a different experience. I hope BA had a close look at the FCT when they planned for T5.

Fraser

A dream indeed. Alas how do you deal with immigration, security, the fact LHR would have more cars running around it than the M25, all of which would need to clear airside checks. Several hundred chauffeurs would all need to pass background checks for airside access.

Logistically nigh on impossible. As others have said an LH FCT is much more realistic (as has been proved).

Kiwi Flyer

To those complaining about BA F, I'll happily swap SQ Y for BA F.

alect

The LH FCT does truly redefine the airport experience. YOu literally do not have to worry or hassle with a thing. The harshest words recently were about the secondary screening downstairs before getting into the car (which was imposed by German/US authorities) - and even then they provide a leather seat for you right after the metal detector and hand you your shoes in a box/tray with a shoe horn.

I know I have specifically chosen LH mainly due to this reason (certainly not their seat) - oh well there is also FRA v. LHR (the cluster f**k that it is).

PUCCI GALORE

I have read a lot of that which has been said here with great interest. I have to say I read posts from people who evidently fly a great deal. I have to say that it never ceases to surprise me how much space here is devoted to First Class which represents a tiny proportion of the people who fly BA - I have to say that I have no evidence regarding the proportion of revenue that this brings in.

I consider that there have been what I can only describe as downgrades in the service. I was also minded that the biggest gripes - real or imagined (some behaviour is rather hard to actually define and rudeness to one might be irony to another) about the crew. Thread after thread here tell me over and over that it is the crew who can make or break the enjoyment of a flight .

This may or may not be an appropriate way of saying that I cut and pasted the pieces that so many of you actually posted on my last little fishing expedition for your opinions. Most were very taken by the interest that people took and how they enjoyed personable and warm attention. I have to say that I am back doing the same thing in a week or so and will follow this up. One person said a very interesting thing - and I think that this echoes Bealine (lovely to have you back, Sweetheart!). How many of the people who fly with us are actually paying for this, and paying the full rate as opposed to some discounted RTW flight. This was not said disparagingly - but we wondered aloud if the product erosion that we have witnessed was in some part due to the number of people who were paying lower fares. Thanks to you I told them that there were all sorts of people who were flying from Lisbon?Athens/Paris/and othre places where the same ticket could be purchased for in some cases less than we charge for CW - and that this was done as a market tactic. None of us can understand - (although we were all delighted that people did) - why anyone in their right mind would actually want to fly through LHR with the mess that it is (Thanks for your help BAA! which they were called something else as they are not even British owned now and people seem to think that BA and BAA are all one entity!) - unless the price was right.

I specualte - rightly or wrongly - that if the airline carried in the F cabin people who had paid the F fare maybe they produce would be restored. Pease remember too that any staff are - unless they are positioning - are stand by to the moment that the doors close. Now - whether we would make less money by doing this is debtable. I simply do not know and no one outside Yield Management does. I offer this as a thought only - I have to say that I am obliged to say that no staff on any flight that I work would tut or tsk if people want to eat at different times from the normal meal offerings. If they did I would want to know about it and the matter would not stop there.

jonnye

And that is how it's supposed to be. I was under the impression that F class FA's were posted to these positions as they have worked their way up the ladder (so to speak...from Euro Traveller up through the ranks to CW etc) is this still the case?

Finally I think BA should learn a lesson from SQ about using F class sparingly, as a colleague of mine who fly's ZRH-SIN every 2nd week and is a Lifetime PPS (Basically Premier), he has informed me that it's extremely difficult to even find a discounted First seat / award seat, as they are very limited to each flight, furthermore the discounted price for an F ticket isn't as discounted in proportion to BA's A Class Fares.

Land-of-Miles

The yield in the F cabin correlates closely with the route, I am not sure there is a "typical" route although BA long haul operations have a significant bias towards the North American market. My own more recent experiences have been travelling to HKG and elsewhere in Asia, with a little bit of the Middle East thrown in for good measure, where I suspect that F yield is somewhat better.

I would not share your confidence that Yield Management truly understand the yield on any given flight or route. I have often found that when I have been working on process improvements in a technical function (which many people in a business really don't understand), that the methods of working and the effectiveness of management control can be shockingly poor.

Yield Management determines the profile for a flight (typically using hostoric data) and then allocate F seats between the 2 Revenue Fare buckets (A and F), the Redemption Fare bucket (Z) and the Staff Travel fare bucket (I can't remember which one it is but you get the point). The thinking is that yield (i.e. income per seat) would be maximised by offering 14 seats (on a 744) in F rather than Z, since the F bucket offers the highest return right? In reality depending upon the origin of the ticket (e.g. I have a return ticket to SYD booked in F ex CAI for which I paid £2400), the real yield in F can be far less than it may at first seem. BA would yield more from 14 ex UK tickets in A than 14 ex CAI tickets in F. This level of granularity and control over the location of sale is just not routinely available to Yield Management AFAIK. There is then the added question of corporate discounts and how this effects real yield. If PAX A has (like I do) paid for his ticket himself but booked in A, he may well yield more than PAX B who is booked in F but whose company received a 60% discount on the ticket price.

My real point is thus that no-one really knows the effective yield in F on any given route on any given day, unless they perform a deeper analysis of the ticket sales for a particular flight (and I really do not believe that this is done as a routine task). The F/A/Z/Upgrade etc. split as per the manifest really gives no clear idea about the revenue which accrued from the sale of the tickets.

Thus if everyone travelling in F paid the F (not A) fare, actually BA could be rather worse off than if everyone travelling in F paid the A fare. Leaving all that aside and assuming that you meant that "If everyone travelling in F was paying the ex UK Full Fare F price", wouldn't the product quality have to improve first (pardon the pun) to convince more PAX to actually part regularly with full F fares? I would suggest PAX would be certifiably insane to pay large sums for an F ticket given current product quality and service standards.

Jenbel

We've had this discussion before I've already pointed out that they would still need to go through security, which means a vehicle search in addition to all baggage coming out of the car and being carried into the shed to be put through the x-ray. In addition, under current DfT rules, you couldn't let them through with just a boarding pass, they'd have to have a visitors pass, which means you need a formal escort, and the escort details all have to be recorded (by hand of course!), into the ubiquitous visitors log. Since the tightening up on visitors passes, generally you have to go to the pass office to get one issued (between the hours of 9 and 4 for most airports), with the appropriate ID and paperwork filled in. And all people on a visitors pass have to undergo a full bag and body search before entry onto the airfield. Now, add in the delays that putting through all F pax through this would be like (it would be like getting stuck behind a crew bus going airside, only worse )... It's just not practical with how UK airports are run, and the current security requirements. Added to that the congestion and increased risk of accident airside (there are roads airside which unless you have free roaming priviliges, you have to keep to - at the same time, many of the roads run alongside and cross taxi-ways. And cars are meant to give way to aircraft) so by accident I mean car/plane collision. Each long-haul aircraft could have 16 cars arriving - what if the limited space by the plane is full because everyone arrives at once? There's usually only space for a couple of vehicles. Where do the cars go, without blocking traffic while they wait? What if you are collected, halfway there, only to discover that your plane is delayed for a tech issue, and won't be boarding for another 2 hours. Would you be happy to spend two hours in the back of a car, waiting?

elitetraveler

How does LH do it at FRA and MUC? Also a new private service JetQuay just introduced this type of service in SIN open to any airline or pax who want to pay, and also QR does it in DOH although that is a smaller operation.

Jenbel

Different airport and security set ups. LH gets around a lot of the problems above by having the F terminal, which pax must pass through, meaning they can keep the cars airside, and do all the searches in a dedicated search facility within the terminal (and no doubt, have more control over timing of departure's for a/c, but that's a guess as I've only used the HON lounge, not gone through the terminal). And by doing that, the pax are using pax channels, so don't need a visitor pass (or airport visitor rules are different in those airports - I've never worked at a German airport, so don't know how they handle passes, whereas I have worked at UK ones, and am all too familiar with the problems of going landside to airside without going through the terminal )

SchmeckFlyer's suggestion was to bypass the terminal completely, in a house to hotel to plane thing, with no stops. It would be possible - but it would not work at all well, and would involve rather more queuing than he seems to think (particularly if you pitch up behind that ubiquitous crew bus ). DfT is not likely to waive security restrictions simply because the pax have paid rather more (and quite rightly shouldn't). And the points about vehicle congestion and parking airside are also genuine issues.

elitetraveler

Agreed - BA would need a separate F Terminal - only F pax - sort of like Concorde Room -- it could be interesting because it could be one terminal that handles both T1, 3 and 4 departures and eventually T5 when the move is made.

AA used to provide a courtesy shuttle - they would meet me airside off my BA flight and take me to the T3 transit screening area. On a tight BA connection I was once met on the jetbridge off a NCE flight, taken down the stairs and in a van across to T4 and the transit security there.

In both cases I was actually walking on the tarmac to the van, but i dont know if they needed any special passes for that - at least there were none i was aware of.

SchmeckFlyer

Certainly, the logistics of a door-to-door service would be hell, and in these times, I also imagine a security nightmare waiting to happen. But like I said, one can dream, no? I certainly don't imagine it will ever happen.

But... I bet if BA really wanted to do something like that it could happen. Possibly as a compromise, maybe combine the F terminal idea with a chauffeur service to the F terminal as well, thus seperating land- and airside issues? Not quite as seamless as I would hope (and crucially only availably at the main hub airports), but still good nonetheless...

Maybe for Premiers or for über-Goldmembers (or in future a tier beyond gold), the door to door service could be introduced when flying paid-F.

frankvb

That's almost the same as walking off the plane stairs onto the tarmac to the waiting bus - so likely no need for a special pass.