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$20 BA Fares - Any guesses on total Tix Sold?

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$20 BA Fares - Any guesses on total Tix Sold?

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Old Nov 30, 2002, 12:40 pm
  #1  
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$20 BA Fares - Any guesses on total Tix Sold?

Anybody know what the total "damage" might have been with the ticketing frenzy from last night?
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 12:43 pm
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I wouldn't call it damage, per se, but rather creative marketing. Excellent exposure & opportunity for many FF'ers & the travelling public to try/refresh themselves with BA's services if they haven't done so in quite some time, myself included.

Cheers. Dogstar.
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:02 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Dogstar:
I wouldn't call it damage, per se, but rather creative marketing. Excellent exposure & opportunity for many FF'ers & the travelling public to try/refresh themselves with BA's services if they haven't done so in quite some time, myself included.

Cheers. Dogstar.
</font>
Considering BA's current financial situation I wouldn't call it anything OTHER than damage. This wasn't in their marketing budget nor in their ad budget so with the amount of tickets I guess were sold they probably lost over 1 million dollars.
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:05 pm
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We should remember, though, that most of these seats would not have been purchased if the fare had not been so low. If the plane goes out with empty seats in WT+, then BA didn't really loose that much (although there will be a loss, because there is no doubt that $20.00 does not cover the cost of catering/ground handling etc. for one passenger).
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:11 pm
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I believe someone who rang BA was told 1000+!

(tickets sold that is)

Jeremiah

[This message has been edited by teahan (edited 11-30-2002).]
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:17 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by makin'miles:
We should remember, though, that most of these seats would not have been purchased if the fare had not been so low. If the plane goes out with empty seats in WT+, then BA didn't really loose that much (although there will be a loss, because there is no doubt that $20.00 does not cover the cost of catering/ground handling etc. for one passenger).</font>
BA's loads in WT+ are actually pretty good...
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:18 pm
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The trouble for BA is that the fare probaly doesn't even cover incremental fuel for even a 150 lb pax, I would imagine. If the fare was $200 in WT+, I imagine BA could cover incremental costs and people would stll buy.
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:49 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Dogstar:
I wouldn't call it damage, per se, but rather creative marketing. Excellent exposure & opportunity for many FF'ers & the travelling public to try/refresh themselves with BA's services if they haven't done so in quite some time, myself included.

Cheers. Dogstar.
</font>
I wonder if the press is aware of this?
In any case, after christmas thru end Mar is traditionally a slow month. If you think about it, with so many people (ahem, FTers) taking this BA deal, that probably means more than likely, other carriers to europe might have less sales.

Hmmm...if UA is offering $50 deals to SIN, i'll communte every other day....


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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:52 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ws8n:
I wonder if the press is aware of this?
In any case, after christmas thru end Mar is traditionally a slow month. If you think about it, with so many people (ahem, FTers) taking this BA deal, that probably means more than likely, other carriers to europe might have less sales.

Hmmm...if UA is offering $50 deals to SIN, i'll communte every other day....

</font>
Despite the damage for BA being quite considerable I doubt other carriers will notice a loss of 1000 pax over a period of 3 months...
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 1:58 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ScottC:
Considering BA's current financial situation I wouldn't call it anything OTHER than damage. This wasn't in their marketing budget nor in their ad budget so with the amount of tickets I guess were sold they probably lost over 1 million dollars.</font>
I guess where I was going with my thought pattern is it would better for BA to make honey out of vinegar (or something like that. ). I think it may be more damaging publicly if they or their "agents" don't honour the fare as sold/purchased.

Cheers. Dogstar.
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 2:07 pm
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Just got off the phone with BA

All confirmed and very nice about it too- I think they are taking the honey route
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 2:17 pm
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The way the fare basis came up, "TLXSALE8", me thinks this was an intentional event on BA's part. If most of the people who grabbed the fare are frequent travellers, and 15% of the 1,000 book a future regular fare on BA, they probably have no trouble covering their fixed costs of 1,000 tickets.

My guess is the booking engines get $10, so BA made $10 on each ticket. What could the incremental cost of carrying a passenger over the Pond in WT+ cost plus onward to the Continent, maybe $65? If 150 of the 1,000 people book a new pre-tax fare of $700 in the next year their gross revenue would be $105,000. Using my cost guesses, they would spend $55 times 1,000 people on this promo. I suspect 15% of the "winners" will be pleased enough with BA's generosity and service, to give them a new future booking as I describe.

The press will likely give BA all kinds of good (read: free) publicity. The negative stuff that we are seeing people post about, seems to be the fault of the booking engines.

Of course, I could be dead wrong



[This message has been edited by Craig6z (edited 11-30-2002).]
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 2:21 pm
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The BA person I talked to was very nice as well. However, she did say it was a mistake. It was supposed to be a sale but not a giveaway.




[This message has been edited by dejahma (edited 11-30-2002).]
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 2:27 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Craig6z:
The way the fare basis came up, "TLXSALE8", me thinks this was an intentional event on BA's part. </font>
Ahhh, that must be it, a non promoted, non published international event

Craig, I think you forgot the sarcasm smilie... An airline struggling to survive doesn't sell tickets for $20

Let's not joke each other here, this was an error, plain and simple. It probably WAS a sale, just not for $20, a WT+ sale would more likely be around $1200...
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Old Nov 30, 2002, 2:35 pm
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That's why I added the final sentence, Scott. Probably have a 50-50 chance of being right!
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