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BA takes drastic steps to improve punctuality
All is not rosy in the garden at British Airways. As well as customer satisfaction scores being down, their punctuality is not improving despite taking steps to incentivise staff to get flights away on time. Now the new Chief Operating Officer (who came from KLM) has ordered senior managers to “sponsor” a flight to try to identify steps to improve punctuality. This will mean they are actually there observing the process to see if they can work out what is going wrong.
The fact that managers don’t already know the answer suggests a breakdown between staff and managers. Who has had a flight depart late due to a late arriving aircraft? I’m pretty sure almost every reader that has flown on BA in the last year has had this on most flights.
Almost every flight I have had with BA recently has been delayed inbound to Heathrow because there is a lack of staff to operate the stand guidance or lack of a stand. Plus, increased bus use for long haul flights can’t be helping with turn-round times either. Add to that the issues with the A380, which seems to be one of the worse hit for delays (I suspect the problems with inoperable seats are contributing to this since B A has been having difficulty getting parts to fix them).
With aircraft departing on time currently as low as 51.9% in March, according to data supplied by aviation analytics firm OAG. The last attempt was to focus on New York JFK, now they are trying to identify improvements in general. Their target is for 67% of aircraft to depart within 15 minutes of departure time, so not exactly ambitious. Here’s one – pay enough money so you can staff your operation fully!
Air France/KLM launch business light fares?
When I wrote about Air France/KLM announcing that they would be charging for business class seats, I wondered at the time why they didn’t follow others such as Finnair and Qatar by offering a business class lite fare rather than charging all passengers for a seat. Well, I should be careful what I wish for as that is precisely what they look like they are doing. US blog Loyalty Lobby today posted screenshots of a new business light fare that could be seen when booking. However, I have been unable to replicate this myself, even on the same routes. Nothing has been announced by KLM/AF, so I wonder if this has not officially launched yet, but it looks like it is coming!
The new light fares have the following differences
- No Lounge access
- 1 x 32g bag instead of 2
- No seat selection until check-in
You still get all your SkyPriority benefits, but it looks like they will not be changing their stance on seat selection fees as business standard will still have to pay for seat selection.
What do you think about the launch of business light fares from AF/KLM. Would it put you off flying with them? Let us know in the comments below.
Radisson launch 25% off summer sale
If you need to book some hotels for the summer, Radisson has launched a sale which covers the usually expensive school holiday period. I suspect it is because a lot of Radisson’s are more business focused.
The offer is for hotels across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific with and up to 25% off on hotel stays booked by 15 May. You stay from 1 July 1st to 10 September 2023.
You can find the sale page here.
16 comments
I’m not sure if I’d call BA’s steps “drastic”. This is a common tactic for new bosses to make it look like they’re doing “something” when the problems are somewhere completely different (and you identify them at the end of the section) – but that actually costs money!
BA are a penny pinching mess, and have been for at least 4 years. I am British but never use them.
It’s true that AF/KLM have introduced biz lite, the tickets are on sale. If you are a flying blue member, you can still select a seat for free, and access lounges with status, so in truth, regular flyers won’t notice much difference.. For me the advantages are a reduced ticket cost for leisure flights, plus all the usual status benefits.
Won’t be using Klm or Air France with their new policy.
Often you here the negative comments and not the positive ones,so let me describe and hint at a few I’ve experienced on the last month alone with BA and BA Holidays…firstly I rang BAH (holidays yesterday) and the phone was answered in less than 10 seconds(Chris was delighted when I told him how delighted I was lol ),secondly we had a bad experience with our hotel on a BAH last month in Marrakech,not only did they call within 30 minutes of my concerns raised through social media,they offered too move our hotel,change our flights for free if we wanted too come home early (which we did) but we’re thoroughly on our well being and thirdly they have granted me a massive favour,which I won,t divulge otherwise hundreds will be on it…so THREE in one month…it’s not all doom and gloom with BA and I could real off half a dozen more if required…always our preferred choice,I think often it’s adopting a be kind attitude that helps for all travellers and airline staff.
Hopefully this business light trend or Premium Economy lite trend will not be successful and airlines will start realizing this – but most important is consumer and business account decision makers should just move to another airline group and show them that such move is rather silly. Qatar and Emirates might succeed in this due to their much better inflight product and service, but I don’t see how European airlines can with their already mediocre service and hard product. Hopefully BA will not see this as an opportunity to be the next to start this trend. We should all now vote with our wallets or influence our business travel decision makers to shift to someone else.
I will avoid AF/KLM. “Light BusinessClass” fare is a disgrace for any airline.
I don’t think over the last six months I’ve left on any on time BA Flight. One particular Sunday we left so late from EDI to LHR we missed our connection to DXB (hello Sofitel
….again) and the next day over seven hours on board with a delay (longer than the actual flight) which meant we missed two days of our holiday. Average delay for me is 45min to one and a half hours. Two weeks ago leaving LGW-AGP we were told by ground staff it was a late incoming aircraft then something different from the crew on board.
Personally, I’m not sure dragging staff out of offices will see any material change. On Sunday I flew with EasyJet AGP-GLW and was astonished at the 11.15am departure time the air bridge was actually removed. Maybe it’s time to switch from blue to orange.
The biggest problem I see with departures for long haul, is the delay in “preparing” the gate area for boarding. You can often stand there well past boarding time, with all BA staff at the gate, maybe waiting the extra security staff etc, but no announcements will be made for SSSS or those needing extra assistance etc.
Then the crew will arrive, then there is another delay and finally they start to ask pre board and SSSS to come forward. Then it’s a hot mess while they sort everyone out and the call comes in to start boarding and there are wheelchairs and families everywhere when group 1 starts the charge ….
They really need to start organising people earlier. That way once they actually are able to start boarding people, its less chaos.
There will be someone from BA stood with the tape across ALL the lanes, waiting. Why not let Group 1 line up in the taped off area, then 2 and 3 but keep one lane open with a member of staff checking group numbers, passports and allowing SSSS, and pre boards through there so the congestion is removed. Hey, maybe even two members of staff, there are typically 5 or more stood waiting for boarding to commence anyway.
I do watch in amusement every time and wonder how they don’t see this.
Totally agree on the tape issue. No idea why they don’t do that as it would clear the gate area.
Early this month I switched from “blue to orange” as the BA fares were simply unaffordable to me. Even economy – LHR to Lisbon – was £300 + one way and business twice as much, one way too. I know it was Easter time but those prices were on for weeks, it seemed.
I flew from Luton with EasyJet. Punctuality was perfect.
Tomorrow I’m flying back (LIS/LHR) but with TAP, again due to price.
My son is still a staunchly BA customer but I’ve ‘freed’ myself as ripping off customers has a limit and they’ve reached it in my case.
I have been lucky to have plenty of BA flghts not only take off on time but arrive back at Heathrow, be on stand and off before the scheduled arrival time. I think a number of factors such as weather, airport strikes and ATC restrictions both at Heathrow and abroad have affected BA’s performance especially with the number of flights they run from Heathrow . BA holidays and BA itself are fantastic and I have got through in around 25 seconds everytime I have needed to call them as of late . People do crticse BA quietly harshly sometimes but I believe it is important to hear the postive comments also. AF/KLM have moved to a similar model to BA/OW wherby you can either pay to select a seat if you do not have status or can choose one free 24hrs before. I am intrigued to see how exactly sponsoring a flight will work in practise but hopefully especially on short haul with shorter turn round times they can deploy more ground staff or other techniques they may have to recover any delay on previous flights
(About BA) The ontime project should be happening now, I looked at the intranet but it didn’t specify what flights the management would be “sponsoring.” It also doesn’t name names which is much in line with no general accountability procedures. No accountability was a recurring observation on a recent internal live session for staff to log onto and answer set and free format questions within a set time (managed by an outside company)
The ontime sponsorship news was pinned next to the initiative to get all JFK flights out on time and be an “industry leader” on that score. However, my experience in thelast 2 weeks seems to be that if JFK is the big focus, the more peripheral the destination the worse off the conditions.. it will be parked out on a remote stand with bus problems, late catering and cleaning etc and kept out of sight of JFK “sponsors”!!
Few if any outsiders (eg Rene from KLM) last that long at BA.
Thanks for the insight. Why do you think that so many long haul flights are getting bus gates. Prior to Covid it was a rarity. Now it seems to be a normal occurrence.
My opinion – poor and disjointed planning. I know some flights are moving back to T3. Between 1-9 June, 10 long haul (except for Bahrain they are all A350) move and a number of short haul have/will be moving making some space at T5. Of the last 3 777 flights i have worked on all have come/gone from a remote stand and all have had technical issues of one kind or another though not enough to cancel the flight. I do know a 777 went to Seattle last week with no water supply after about an hour flight but it pressed on and did not return to LHR.
BA seem to be continually reaping the rewards of making so many experienced and knowledgable staff redundant in 2020 and replacing them with people who are inexperienced and clueless. That coupled with LHR doing exactly the same thing is now creating a perfect storm. I can think of no other airport I travel to frequently where the same level of chaos is the norm. All that and LHR want to increase fees while BA are charging record level fares all for such poor service. Utterly ridiculous.
That sums it up well!
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