I recently flew Egyptair in business class from Cairo to Dublin, upgrading my ticket for US225 or Ł165. They do really nice coffee, I found, and the 08:20 departure was a lunch service, not breakfast. That meant the first service was coffee and a cookie, then a couple of hours into the flight the lunch service began. It was served in courses, starting with a shrimp and baby octopus salad, then a turkey roulade for the main. All that is cleared away and then dessert is served and I had a lemon tart. Plenty of food and that plus the fact the seats are 2x2 with tons of room between the seat in front made me really regret having used Avios to fly BA from Cairo to London the previous year. There's even inflight entertainment for both classes, so overall it's a much better experience than BA.

Yes, they don't serve alcohol, but I didn't find that a show stopper. I was pleasantly surprised - and once again, wouldn't have even thought to try them had it not been for the BA programme changes.

I agree, although at some point the aim is to have jam today (eg dividends) as well as securing jam tomorrow

And given its full year 2025 results, it would appear that folks are indeed gobbling them up. The crash and burn that some suckers of loyalty teats were dreaming of, has not materialized. Just the opposite in fact, as BA has seen its profits increased by ~10% from the previous year. That indicates that its "Tiermaggedon" has been a resounding success as not only has it gained new customers, but many who claim otherwise still continue to use its services. A win all around for BA from what I can see.

Given that a sizeable majority here continue to purchase what it offers even though BA took away their divine rights, and given the new consumers it is attracting that resulted in a material operating profit increase, I suspect like any other business its profits will be sustainable ... ceteris paribus.

The annual report and accounts show the BA passenger business is absolutely flat as a fluke. The overall top line has increased by inflation essentially, and even that isn't driven by passengers.

The main reason for the apparently good profit showing is a windfall on fuel. That looks like it's about to reverse, depending what happens in Iran and the Hormuz Straits. They're also seeing quite significant headwinds on catering and ground handling costs.

You probably ought to look more closely at the business excluding exceptional items. It's not particularly healthy. Tiermaggedon possibly hasn't been a disaster, but it certainly isn't a "resounding success". And IAG are downplaying the loyalty business which was the great hope for low capital growth and using a comparison with 9 years ago to indicate growth in that income stream (which is mostly BAH).

And even with that windfall, it appears the airline business itself is just about breaking even. "Other revenues" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

And even if they still have the same number of passengers and the same income, what they've done has removed a degree of guaranteed repeat business and injected an element of volatility into their customer base that wasn't there before. It's easier to make money consistently by relying on repeat business from loyal customers rather than either competing on price or (as they seem to be doing) relying on random purchases from folk who would be fine flying with any airline. We all know that super profits are made in the thing you sell at the margins - that extra 1% who wouldn't have bought but for.... ; or the extra hour of your time you can charge once you've already covered your costs - and that's what they have disrupted. It may not be huge in terms of turnover, but presumably was a profitable add on that may now not exist.

True, but these exact words have been repeated for years, if not decades, now here. Every little or big change was met with “well, give it a few years.” Unsurprisingly, nothing changed after those few years. Also unsurprisingly, people never came back to those threads to admit they were wrong.

I remember - removal of the separate starter plate in CE on longer flights, cessation of catering contracts at outstations, removal of bigger legroom in CE and some rows in ET, removal of complimentary food and drinks in ET, introduction of paid-for seats, switch to spend based earnings for Avios.… I am sure something else will come to mind, but all of these were accompanied with “if not now, then in a few years BA will suffer.” It’s been 20 years, and BA is still with us with its profits. Those changes were not for short-term gain it appears.

you appear to be confusing FT with the general population, what might be said here is an absolute microcosm of reality ,your moral high ground of ‘where are they now’ is quite frankly absurd. As an example of 1, I haven’t flown a revenue flight with BA for about 5 years and probably never will again because I’m not part of their captive market and I think they are an odious capitalist example of much of what is wrong with today’s society but that discussion is for a different day and a different forum. I’ll chuck my hard earned at better companies offering better service.

I am not sure if I should take it as an insult, but how is it absurd? I always admit it if I am wrong. I have principles. Why should others be free to hide behind “give it a few years” line? They will never come back to admit they were wrong.

I think it is the other way around.

Well, you could say that people tend to start new threads or jump into newer ones rather than search for a thread that's 3 years old that they might have posted in.
People also move on and may have different priorities down the line. Definitely some posters who have vanished or have a rather reduced presence since Tiermaggedon.

At the end of the day, there will always be those who will happily pay more and more for less and less.
Those who stick to what they know and will never consider alternatives.
Those who just aren't bothered by what might be construed as first world problems.

Many of the core arguments made remain consistent with BA's flattish results in 2025. Prior to the Club, I prioritised flying BA and booking every holiday I took with them. I proactively booked all the holidays required for Gold in 2025 before "the Club" was announced. So I still took a number of revenue flights with them across J and F before June 30th.

There's a sharp difference between my travel spend before and after June 30th. While overall spend on travel surged last year (consistent with the growth of the premium leisure segment), for me, that spend shifted from BA before June 30th to QR, Cathay, Emirates, Singapore, JL and Finnair after June 30th. I now only have 2 revenue flights with BA in 2026. Both were made to book all the hotels I required for 2026 where booking via a BA Holiday was somehow cheaper than booking directly with those hotels or via another travel agent. Every other BA flight I'm taking is a redemption. So in 2026, BA slips to 5th place for me in revenue spend behind Qatar, Finnair, Cathay and Emirates. This is compared to 2024 where they had almost 100% of the share.

Of course I'm not reflective of the general population, being in that relatively small intersection of customers that spend a significant amount on travel and also optimise that spend to the last Ł to get the best value at the premium end of the market.

Despite my frustrations with BA, I want them to do well. I'm absolutely not in a spiteful camp wanting them to fail because of "the Club". But I still believe they've made the wrong call in its implementation. BA is absolutely right to seek growth in non-flight revenue. That could have come from innovation. Doubling down on cost-cutting has taken the shine off the core product. This is fine in a supply-constrained market like Heathrow. The loss of the rose-tinted spectacles and blind loyalty of the Executive Club will hurt if/when supply constraints are lifted or demand drops below capacity.

If everybody is wrong and it's all going great then why did BA introduce temporary bonus TPs a few months after the change? Why was it subsequently made permanent instead of making it permanent from the start? Surely if permanent bonus TPs were always part of the plan the optimum strategy was to have them in place at the start as that would have made the change less unpalatable to more people. I can only think of two possibilities. Either bonus TPs was implemented in a wholly cack handed way ensuring maximum bad PR for the changes straight after they were announced (knowing BA this is plausible) or it was a two stage reactive measure to it going badly. You can't blame anybody for assuming the latter.

Two other points. Firstly it is a statement of fact that the effects of the BAC change will not become apparent until at least one whole membership year cycle has passed and soft landings etc have unwound. Secondly the argument that eroding standards of service hasn't affected revenue. How do you know? I worked for a very well known UK company which was raking in astronomical revenue back in the day and a senior manager once said to me just imagine how much more we'd make if we were actually any good. It is unknowable where BA would be if they'd maintained the market leading standards of 30 years ago.

IAG is clearly a well run company, BA within that is also competently managed. If I were to invest in airlines - which I never would - IAG would be top of the pile of those I'd consider.

The reason I wouldn't invest in airlines is that it's very difficult to see how significant growth can be maintained when there are low overall operating margins, slot constraints, aircraft supply constraints, intense price competition at the low end, intense competition for premium cabins at the high end, including direct or indirect subsidies. On top of that you have antipathy to flying based on environmental concerns, plus fuel price variability, probably increased taxation before long.

So the only way you can really break out of that doom loop is using non-flying revenue. There are two parts to that really: firstly what BAC aims to do which is to identify money owned by particular segments of customers, and tie FF benefits to those who mark themselves into those segments by spending money on flying. And then to take money from those customers directly and into the eco-system, to which they sell status qualification points and miles.

If I were telling BA what to do from a strategic execution point of view, it would be to hold position while the second half of the deal was put in place. And that's the message of what has come out in the current IAG accounts, BA are treading water on revenue, and are under cost pressure for staff, catering and ground handling.

Unfortunately the short term measures needed to address the latter work against having status as something to aspire to and work towards - I'm not paying Ł120 premium for a salad and a blocked middle seat. Many people will get status they otherwise wouldn't have earned without changing spend at all, us hobbyists are out of the trap door, but my reaction as a fairly well off traveller with discretionary spend is to look at what I get from BA for the money in a premium cabin, realise for short haul it's not needed at all, go lower than BA for LH when there's a reasonable offer (TK 2-3-2 for example), or choose a genuinely premium product for the experience (SQ suites or La Prem).

I will still fly BA when the price is right. I like flying BA. I feel comfortable in a BA cabin and I like the staff. But none of that gives me a compelling reason to prefer BA. That is a huge problem for BA/IAG, as is the obvious point that they are patently failing to build the eco-system that was promised, the partners are getting the same pitch from FB and *A and other airlines and fundamentally everyone is chasing the same money. They have to provide more of a pull.

It's fascinating that the point of reference in the accounts was doubling BAH in 9 years, and not the growth rate of IAG loyalty itself. That says to me that the strategy is floundering. They are trumpeting a 13% increase in new Avios creation and increased engagement from BAC members, which as I've said is a sales pitch based on carefully selected metrics. As a traveller I hope they pull the strategy off, I hope it leads to competive fares, but progress is not as projected, and those who say that BA is doing fine with record profits are not doing the detail.

True, but the same people keep speaking on behalf of others and saying how others would abandon BA or any other airline just because they are mad. If someone is moving on, please move on, but if one keeps posting the same thing about how BA will fail or how the decisions are short-term, maybe it is high time they realized they were wrong? They are mad at BA and they wish BA ill, but life is not going to grant them their wish - can they make peace with that? Given what life threw at me, I can't help but wonder why do they care so much?