I am clearly a dimwit so perhaps if you could be specific! As a starter, the apparent inertia at BHX and perhaps other stations regards obtaining the services of British Airways.
 
I am clearly a dimwit so perhaps if you could be specific! As a starter, the apparent inertia at BHX and perhaps other stations regards obtaining the services of British Airways.
Inertia from what part of BA? Cityflyer has returned to BHX and hopefully will stay with and make the base at BHD becoming permanent.
Mainline into Heathrow operates a hub and spoke london focused model and BHX is too close for that. Maybe in the future the new Gatwick LCC part might expand into airports like BHX but are they needed when the airports have the likes of Wizz, Easyjet and Ryanair to work with? Although yes it would be nice to see the BA brand flying from my local airport Cardiff it's mostly from pure sentiment of having the brand fly to Cardiff really.
 
I am clearly a dimwit so perhaps if you could be specific! As a starter, the apparent inertia at BHX and perhaps other stations regards obtaining the services of British Airways.

Ok, so you have described BA as a problem child and in need of a change of leadership, potentially to a firebrand to deliver something, that's your opinion which is fine of course. As I have pointed out though, BA/IAG financially has been very successful over the last 10 years and has been one of the only legacy airlines I can think of that hasn't required a direct government bail out, some may suggest that the leadership so far has therefore done a decent job.

I have asked you what the problems are at BA which you clearly think need a change of leadership to tackle.

Your answer seems to be that the problem is the lack of services from regional airports like BHX and that's what you would want a new leader to deliver?

I would presume any commercial airline will only start services where they think they can make money. BA is no different, and if they think they can make money doing short haul or long haul from reginal airports, they will do it. Their long run of financial success may suggest they are reasonably good at doing that already though. To the extent they want to start long haul from the regions IAG seems to be wanting EI to deliver that rather than BA.

BA has not wanted to do direct short haul and long haul from the regions for a long time now. They clearly didn't think it was the right thing for them to offer (other than some minor dabbling with BACF during the summer season) and preferred to stick rigidly to their chosen LHR/LGW/LCY hub model. BA clearly thought that market was very competitive and too low margin for them to get involved, and when you would be coming up against U2, FR, and LS I can see their point.

Perhaps that will change in the future, but I suspect it won't. BACF will continue to dabble with some summer routes to maximise use of aircraft and crew during the very quiet weekend period, but BA mainline seems to be happy to stick with LHR/LGW only. I certainly think there may be a shift for at least a few years to see more leisure routes from LHR and a reduction in business routes. Perhaps BACF will stick with some of the new domestic routes for a while, but it really depends on whether and when LCY routes recover.
 
As to the thoughts of KARFA, I cannot disagree even if I do not like it. I firmly believe that if a service was available, it would be used. BA Regional was a service that was known about even if the economic parameters did not meet the needs of the bean counters. Just knowing that one could catch a ride to New York or Toronto from BHX instead of LHR or LGW was enough in my view to avoid the torture of travelling to those southern terminals.
 
Someone on the BHX thread thinks that there should be a LHR-BHX route. That’s never going to happen in my opinion London is way to close to BHX for that and you have to bare in mind ground transportations aswell such as trains and coaches
 
Reading the comments on Business Traveller forum about BA does make you wonder if those frequent travellers (Gold, Platinum depending of airline reward programme) have a sense of entitlement or just expect a consistent service level across the airlines they use. The latter isn't achievable as companies have differing standards/products to offer and we often vote with our wallets. Amongst these guys are those who take advantage of free chauffeur services to, say, LHR. Others freely admit to using Ryanair for short journeys and "adjust their expectations accordingly". Some take short-haul flights with locos or KLM/AF/Lufthansa to connect through a better airport, often with cheaper fares than ex LHR. Another commented that BA should change its name to London Airways.

On that forum are contributions from BA staff, some long servers. They've experienced the gradual erosion of their status under the banner of cost cutting. Again, you could view this as a sense of entitlement. The Walsh/Cruz era has drawn the most criticism. As with a lot of companies outside the aviation sector, the focus has been on retaining a cheaper (younger) workforce that lacks the experience of the long servers. A CEO of a loco may not be the best person to run a legacy airline. Perhaps the best route is to get someone from a similar carrier, who can bring expertise. Don't want to get into commenting about whether he was a success at Virgin or not, but didn't Craig Krieger come from American Airlines?

Then, do countries still need a national airline? Some would say no, it's purely a political vehicle. Others would argue the case to retain purely on the basis of past glories. The ME3 can afford to offer their levels of service, some carriers are attempting to keep up whilst others gave up long ago.

Will be interesting if Qatar increases shareholding. During recent BA pilots strike, some Qatar A320s were used. The one comment that resonated amongst passengers was the aircraft were immaculate and the crew welcoming. What a change from BA's offering!
 
BRITISH Airways says it will spend £6million a year to increase diversity among its pilots.

The airline is stumping up £100,000 each for the training costs of 60 new applicants a year from low-income backgrounds.

The article in The Sun goes on to say applicants will no longer need A Levels or degrees to become a pilot.

What are peoples thoughts on this? Whilst we must welcome the idea of increasing diversity, it still needs to be based on the quality of the applicants. Could safety be compromised by airlines taking on recruits on the basis of background, ethnicity or gender rather than the applicants credentials? Could somebody's lack of ability to try hard in education actually be a mental or physical hinderance on the flight deck?

#BARecruits
 
Could safety be compromised

Put simply, no.

Diversity would be increased not by taking on anybody, but by allowing people who have all the aptitudes to be a pilot but couldn't otherwise afford to undertake the training.

Whilst some pilots do take the modular training route, funded by working another job prior to and around training, the vast majority of new pilots still take the fully integrated training route which is self funded and makes becoming an airline pilot one of the hardest jobs to get into at least from a financial perspective.

Ultimately they'll still have to pass all the assessments, training and routine checks that existing pilots do.
 

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