Does HfP have an ‘anti-BA’ bias?

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• Graham says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:14

  As a long time reader of HFP, I find the accusation of HFP having an ‘anti BA bias’ laughable.

  IMHO, Rob writes excellent articles on BA which on the whole are balanced, considered and fair (based on what I also experience on BA).

  The articles highlight any changes to the product offering (is he supposed to ignore these?!) and also encourage healthy debate on this very site, enabling us readers to make informed decisions.

  Keep up the good work!

• whiskerxx says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:29

  It seems to me that the BA employee has misinterpreted your comments, and failed to understand what really lies behind them.
  I doubt that they can read HFP on a daily basis, or else they would recognise that when it comes to magazine racks you have more than a touch of OCD.
  A more helpful response from then would be to send a PM suggesting cognitive behavioural therapy or some selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors! 🙂

• Dave says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:37

  I think its worth noticing that most of it appears as constructive criticism, I would imagine BA take a lot of this on board, whether they act on it or not.
  Nothing you have written has swayed me from booking BA but its always been helpful to know prior to flying or when considering routes for personal use.

  I would rather read a 80/20 split of criticism to praise

• Concerto says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:38

  It’s just one person, probably just venting alone. It’s amazing how just one person can create such a polemic! I would just ignore it.

• Travelbear38 says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:40

  I find the BA forum on flyertalk does not allow you to say anything bad about the world’s favourite. A number of the more frequent posters attack anyone who dares to point out the crappy food,stuck up staff and tatty jumbos.
  Still go out of my way to fly BA but when I get a choice between them and Etihad I always go with the latter.

• dicksbits says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:41

  I recently flew to and from PEK in CW. A Gold Upgrade reward flight, my partner and I tried out the middle ‘couple’ seats on the 744. I had ‘priced’ the flights and they were coming in around £4k rtn each. With old style IFE (and a limited range of choice) and food which seemed like ‘stodge’ with little finesse, the only thing that stood out was the service (which was very good). The cabin was full of new BA flight attendants returning to PEK, who spent the majority of the outbound flight giggling and standing around each other’s seat at the back of the cabin. It crossed my mind that if I’d paid cash for these seats I wouldn’t be a fully satisfied customer. Whatever people say about provision at the airport and perks, it’s the onboard ‘experience’ that counts. BA are behind and overpriced in my view.

  • Bob says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:06

    A bit tough to focus on cabin crew chatting – this happened on a recent J flight on Emirates …and the last flight we took in Virgin UC, a member of cabin crew made up be empty bed opposite me and then laid down in her uniform and slept the whole flight from Chicago, remaking the bed before landing 🙂

    • Keith Priestnal says:

      9 Jun9 June 13:52

      Unbelievable, or is it?
      I have just returned from Barbados UC on Virgin. On the outbound day flight the cabin supervisor made up 3 beds for cabin crew who alternated the use throughout the flight.
      disgraceful.

      • TimS says:

        9 Jun9 June 14:03

        Why disgraceful?

        If there are available UC seats, why shouldn’t the crew use them rather than the usual crew rest area?

        • Bob says:

          9 Jun9 June 16:54

          It’s probably irrational, just as it might irrationally irk some people to pay for a top restaurant and have staff eat the exact same meal at the next table for free. It’s not about minding them having it so much as feeling on the butt end of a joke for paying a lot of money for the same experience when exclusivity was a key selling point.

      • TimS says:

        9 Jun9 June 14:10

        Incidentally, when I flew AA J earlier this year, 1A was occupied for most of the LHR-JFK sector by the relief pilot.

    • TimS says:

      9 Jun9 June 14:06

      Are you sure she was supposed to be active CC on that leg and not just dead-heading back?

      • Bob says:

        9 Jun9 June 16:26

        I don’t know but she was in uniform and slept for several hours of the flight. I assumed she was hung over – I actually didn’t care much and was saying for BA crew to be chatting was an even smaller deal by comparison. 🙂

• Deenesh says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:48

  I have never flown Business. My collecting for the last few years is towards being able to take myself and my partner in Business (or even First) at some point in the near future. So as someone who flies purely Economy for my trips I feel that BA aren’t really any worse than any other airline in Y. I have flown VS, QR, AA, UA, RJ and BA longhaul and can honestly say in Y that American were the worst. The staff were disinterested and service was surley. But I may have caught them on a bad day. Even QR in their brand new 787 service from EDI when travelling to SIN in 2014 wasn’t anything to write home about. I can honestly say in Y on BA I’ve had some of the best food in the air in all my years of travelling on trips to EWR and YYZ in recent years.
  Now I can’t comment on premium cabins and it is clear that BA have fallen way behind many airlines, not just the Gulf carriers. Employees of a company will always be disappointed when reading bad things about their company. I work for a small airline and we leave much to be desired sometimes in both service for customers and how staff are treated but it still irks me when we are constantly slated on social media.

  • marly says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:41

    Agreed,
    When I fly economy, I always fly BA because the staff are amazing and they give drinks and snacks throughout the flight, all you need to do I go at the back of the plane and ask and they never have any issue with it. Unlike Delta, on a 11h flight to LA wouldn’t feed us for more than 5h and then give a soggy sandwich before landing. Never ever!
    Of course, entertainment is still something from the 80’s, but the A380, if lucky to fly on, does the job!

    • Dave R says:

      9 Jun9 June 19:42

      I would also agree with this. BA economy is great IME compared to many other airlines. We flew to LAS for our honeymoon with Delta and were treated like cattle. I spent the whole flight in a fully reclined (broken) seat. There were plently of seats available in other cabins but according to Delta I “wasnt upgradable”. We flew that route with BA the next time and it was luxury by comparison. Now I always lean towards BA whether in economy, Business or First as I know what to expect and, if there are any issues, the BA crew are usually sympathetic and helpful which is a credit to them considering the way they are often treated by their employer.

• Bob says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:52

  Are the ME3 airlines (which people tend to use as comparison) private companies operating under the same commercial pressures as BA?

  • rossmacd says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:22

    Does it really matter? Especially when comparing on the ground and onboard service provision? Quite frankly, I could not care if the airline is making a profit, losing money hand over fist, or being subsidised by a government. It makes no difference to me as a passenger.

    • Rob says:

      9 Jun9 June 10:25

      No they’re not. Oman Air, for example, just had to pay $75m to get a pair of slots at Heathrow to run one flight a day, whilst BA got all its slots for free!

  • Ben says:

    9 Jun9 June 11:23

    For me this is irrelevant. My decision to fly with X airline will be based on price and product and not corporate finance structures. BA are competing with these other airlines whether they like it or not, so the only way they can avoid further commercial pressures is to improve their pricing and/or products and not rely so heavily on the fact they have such a dominant position out of London (and nostalgia).

  • Anthony Dunn says:

    9 Jun9 June 13:55

    Demonstrably not.
    Whilst Emirates’ Tim Clark loves to trot out reams of figures about EK’s performance, the dividends it has paid to the Dubai government (err, read, Royal family…), what is conspicuously ignored is the level of gearing that EK has. Try comparing this with any other publicly quoted company such as Ryanair or Easyjet and you will see that EK’s gearing, at well over 100%, is far higher than a quoted company could manage, or markets would allow. The reason, as explained to me by a friend who works for one of Wall Street’s most (in)famous investment banks is that EK’s borrowings are deemed to be qua-sovereign debt, underwritten by the UAE authorities. This is explicitly the case with Qatar whose financial reporting is opaque, being a wholly state-owned airline.

    BA most certainly inherited most of its landing slots at Heathrow, in much the same way that EK, QR, EY et al inherited their slots in their respective home bases.

    • Rob says:

      9 Jun9 June 14:36

      A small dog could make a profit running an airline with a home airport running 24/7 with 5 (?) runways, modern fuel efficient planes, no legacy pension costs (BA is a pension fund with aircraft on the side) and within a few hours reach of over half the global population.

      • Anthony Dunn says:

        9 Jun9 June 14:43

        Indeed – and with very low staff costs courtesy of using imported labour from much of the Indian sub-continent. By way of contrast, BA is (in Michael O’Blarney’s words) “a pension fund with wings…” Not that that stood in his way from making a turn on his stake in Aer Lingus.

        Beyond that, no this website is emphatically NOT anti-BA. In contrast to some other sites, such as Business Traveller which sometimes get to be a tad monotonously and repetitiously “let’s pick holes in anything and everything about BA and ignore the point that many of the problems confronting BA are the same much of the world over…”

      • Lux says:

        9 Jun9 June 19:48

        To be fair, Dubai airport has just two runways – one for some time last year – and Doha has one. No NIMBYs though.

        • harry says:

          9 Jun9 June 20:19

          The airport is the most civilised element of both countries and a serious lifeline to first world standards of living – nobody sane living there is going to object to airline movements.

          Totally unrelated: about time DC bit the bullet & approved both extra runways, he might actually find that it swiftly turns out to be a deeply popular move with 99% of the UK population.

        • Rob says:

          9 Jun9 June 21:59

          True. Dubai World Central will have five runways when complete though! Add in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and you will have an astonishing capability within a few square miles.

        • Lady London says:

          10 Jun10 June 02:58

          Let’s hope their air traffic control remains up to snuff then.

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