British Airways News

WW was chosen by BA to do a JOB.He didn’t give himself the JOB.The Airline obviously brought him in for specific reasons;)

Willy Walsh has been ‘brought in’ because he applied for the vacancy left when Rod Eddington resigned. He will hopefully be the right man, and carry on Rods good work whilst undoubtedly making his own mark, probably on Waterside.

Willy shouldn’t be seen as the new saviour for BA, just the next CEO.

1L.

Would an all club product at certain times of day to CDG, FRA and AMS work?

Not in todays climate, but you’re not far off the mark. In the early 90’s when money was no object to airlines or passengers and you couldn’t get a seat in Club on some routes BA did look at removing EuroTraveller (economy) from CDG, BRU, AMS, ATH and SVO and having an all Club cabin.

As MarkL says BA does have a Club/Traveller converter seat on its shorthaul fleet, 5 across in Club, 6 across down the back. The centre seat on the 3 side of Club has never been popular for obvious reasons, so 2 A320s have just been fitted with new seats to trial passenger reaction. They are 4 across in Club, 6 across down the back, and have thinner backs in both cabins so you get more legroom without increasing the seat pitch.

1L.

Erm, have either of you ever flown Club on BA? I think you will find they have an adjustable middle seat which can be adjusted to create as large or as small a Club cabin as they like. Hence the reason why some flights are Club: 70 Economy: 70 and some Club: 10 Economy 130 😀

What I was thinking was more along the lines of what BD have with the adjustable middle seat on the A320/321 that allows them to vary the size of the business class cabin. Why not have something like this with the aircraft in an all club config at peak times of the day that could have the extra seat added back in quickly during a turnaround to make it an all economy config for the off peak flights.

That would just serve to cheapen the Club product. One of its selling points is the comfortable seat 😉

If they could fill an A320 with club pax, and another one flying at the same time with economy pax, they might as well fly a 767 on the route. At the moment I believe BA have the balance quite finely tuned, with Club demand being greater on certain flights than leisure demand, and vice versa. All this neatly ties into one aircraft, thereby cutting the costs.

Running two aircraft on the same route at the same time, especially on such a short sector is quite uneconomic.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of what BD have with the adjustable middle seat on the A320/321 that allows them to vary the size of the business class cabin. Why not have something like this with the aircraft in an all club config at peak times of the day that could have the extra seat added back in quickly during a turnaround to make it an all economy config for the off peak flights.

WW was chosen by BA to do a JOB.He didn’t give himself the JOB.The Airline obviously brought him in for specific reasons to make them more streamlined and capable of surviving in this cut throat world.I’m sorry for all those people who May lose there jobs but if overall in the greater scheme of things they are taking more than they give to the airline then they have to go.
I agree whole heartedly with SHAMROCK321 and his beliefs that EI are better now than before.I for one am happy to pay for my food onboard etc etc as long as fares are cheaper which they are and now because they have paired down the airline they are offering better fares and more destinations than they did before and are better postioned to cope with the LOCO’s.Aerlingus was a good airline its a great one now especially in europe and over the atlantic no one can touch there fares not by a mile and if they did you just add an extra three hrs at least to your journey while you fly backwards to go forwards. 😉

It seems clear to me that there is still some demand from some passengers for a Club service on short flights(70 on LHR-AMS mentioned above) therefore why should BA remove the service? Surely they make far more money out of these 70 club passengers than they would out of even 150 economy passengers…anyone seen the C-fares? Not everyone wants the Ryanair/Easyjet experience every time they travel anywhere. BA needs to cut out costs but still offer what the customer wants imo.. :rolleyes:

If they could fill an A320 with club pax, and another one flying at the same time with economy pax, they might as well fly a 767 on the route. At the moment I believe BA have the balance quite finely tuned, with Club demand being greater on certain flights than leisure demand, and vice versa. All this neatly ties into one aircraft, thereby cutting the costs.

Running two aircraft on the same route at the same time, especially on such a short sector is quite uneconomic.

Wouldnt they simply be able to convert a club aircraft into an economy one. Business chairs turn into economy one in a matter of seconds??? To do every row might add some time onto the turnaround time but if you were able to fill an aircraft with all club seats then wouldnt it be worth it???

Would an all club product at certain times of day to CDG, FRA and AMS work?

Not realy. That would require you to have two aircraft with differing configurations.
One without the club product and one with. The one with would be sitting around most of the day not earning money. Not ideal.

Good news indeed, but certainly not the end of the difficult times.

Don’t forget that the CEO is only the head of a team, and our leadership team won’t be in too much of a hurry to change what has been working very well for us under Rod Eddington.

I don’t know anyone in the company who won’t cheer at the thought of Waterside being looked at very closely. It is a widely accepted fact that we are a very mangement heavy company, and most of them are there.

As for shorhaul becoming loco, personally I can’t see it, as it goes against everything that the airline stands for. I can see Club coming off some shorthaul routes, as First has from some longhaul routes. CDG, AMS and FRA are not the routes to take it off though. Whilst we don’t routinely see the 150 in Club that we used to have in the 90s, we still have healthy Club loads on these routes most of the time.

The advent of loco’s has kept BA well and truly on its toes, and made it adapt to a new market, but this has actually benefitted BA in the long-run and todays results hardly suggest that BA are a company in trouble.

By the way I haven’t flown with EI for some time, but I have done so 4 or 5 times and thought they were great.

1L.

Would an all club product at certain times of day to CDG, FRA and AMS work?

I remember reading a quote from either Michael O’Leary or Stelios, that there are far to many middle managers at BA’s Waterside HQ sipping Cafe Latte’s and not working, and thats why BA wouldnt survive as an airline

I have to agree.

Is it any wonder that WW plans to tackle Waterside. Can you believe that there are 3,500 staff there? You could run America on that number of Staff! WW is there to do a job,so he’s doing it!

I remember reading a quote from either Michael O’Leary or Stelios, that there are far to many middle managers at BA’s Waterside HQ sipping Cafe Latte’s and not working, and thats why BA wouldnt survive as an airline

Is it any wonder that WW plans to tackle Waterside. Can you believe that there are 3,500 staff there? You could run America on that number of Staff! WW is there to do a job,so he’s doing it!

I hope nobosy think I agree that getting rid of club class is a good idea becasue I dont think it is.

Lamps the WW didnt get rid of EI enginerring that was gone long before he came to be CEO. I dont think ther is much chance of BA enginerring going anytime soon as it is a huge operation.

In some recent research I undertook, several BA flights on LHR-AMS had over 70 pax in Club. This is a huge revenue earner for BA, and if they arbritarily just removed it, there would be devastating consequences. The entire BA marketing campaign over the last few years has been focused on the frill involved with flying BA. If they abolish these frills then they unwind the entire brand, and again, I would be surprised if they got positive results.

I cant disagree with the Waterworld stance, BA is a very unnecessarily management top heavy organisation.

100% agreed mark. Totaly correct.

Anyone who loses their job i feel sorry for, but if job cuts are going to happen i’d rather them be at Waterside HQ rather than at the airports or in the air, because thats the most important part of any airline, what people actually experiance.

In some recent research I undertook, several BA flights on LHR-AMS had over 70 pax in Club. This is a huge revenue earner for BA, and if they arbritarily just removed it, there would be devastating consequences. The entire BA marketing campaign over the last few years has been focused on the frill involved with flying BA. If they abolish these frills then they unwind the entire brand, and again, I would be surprised if they got positive results.

I cant disagree with the Waterworld stance, BA is a very unnecessarily management top heavy organisation.

Good news indeed, but certainly not the end of the difficult times.

Don’t forget that the CEO is only the head of a team, and our leadership team won’t be in too much of a hurry to change what has been working very well for us under Rod Eddington.

I don’t know anyone in the company who won’t cheer at the thought of Waterside being looked at very closely. It is a widely accepted fact that we are a very mangement heavy company, and most of them are there.

As for shorhaul becoming loco, personally I can’t see it, as it goes against everything that the airline stands for. I can see Club coming off some shorthaul routes, as First has from some longhaul routes. CDG, AMS and FRA are not the routes to take it off though. Whilst we don’t routinely see the 150 in Club that we used to have in the 90s, we still have healthy Club loads on these routes most of the time.

As Ryanair and Easyjet get bigger BA are going to find themselves in even bigger trouble

The advent of loco’s has kept BA well and truly on its toes, and made it adapt to a new market, but this has actually benefitted BA in the long-run and todays results hardly suggest that BA are a company in trouble.

By the way I haven’t flown with EI for some time, but I have done so 4 or 5 times and thought they were great.

1L.

…..As for walsh turning EI into a tacky airline…well he couldnt do any worse at BA than Bob Ayling could he?

Well, I’ll give you that 😉