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Earn and spend Avios on BA’s new baby sister – low-cost airline LEVEL

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IAG, the parent of British Airways, announced the name of its new low-cost airline yesterday – LEVEL.

The airline will be based in Barcelona, at least initially. LEVEL isn’t really a stand-alone operation – the crews will be Iberia employees and the schedules are being designed to allow Vueling, IAG’s low-cost and delay-prone short-haul carrier, to provide feed.

Services will launch in June 2017.

Level airline A330

There are just two brand new A330 aircraft being used initially by LEVEL.  The airline will serve:

  • Los Angeles
  • San Francisco (Oakland)
  • Buenos Aires
  • Punta Cana

Services will operate 2-3 times per week depending on route.

The aircraft are being operated as two-class aircraft but those classes are Economy (293 seats) and Premium Economy (21 seats) – there is no Business Class.

LEVEL’s seating is being arranged as 2-4-2.  To give credit to IAG, they could have gone for 3-3-3 although that would be painful given the length of the flights they are planning.  The seats are the new super-thin variant.

Level airline seating

LEVEL will offer a “modern approach to flying”.  How modern?  Try:

you will pay for all food and drink

you will pay for all checked luggage

you will pay for seat selection (€15 for a middle seat at the back up to €68 each way for a window or aisle exit row seat)

you will pay for a blanket, pillow and / or amenity kit

you will pay for internet (fair enough on that one)

you will, after an introductory period, pay for IFE

Premium Economy passengers will not pay for food and drink, seat selection, IFE or checked baggage.

You will also be able to buy more expensive economy tickets, sold as Basic+ or Optimal, which include some of the items above.  The only thing that no-one can get for free is wi-fi.

There are no status benefits.  If you have BA status, for example, you still cannot use fast track or a lounge.

Is the LEVEL airline actually cheap?

Not really, to be honest.  There were some cheap flights loaded initially yesterday, possibly for PR purposes, but you need to look at the day-to-day numbers.

I looked at a 7-day trip to Los Angeles in August.  The price was (and I’m not sure why it was priced in $) $763 return.

A suitcase will be an extra $44 EACH WAY.  A 2nd suitcase will be a whopping $165 EACH WAY.

I haven’t seen the pricing for seat selection or food and drink yet.  Let’s assume that you end up spending at least $30 each way on food and drink.

With one suitcase, our August trip to LA is now up to $911 (£735) return.  If we needed to take 2 suitcases, the cost would be $1,241 (£1,001).  That’s not what I call low-cost.  With Iberia pilots and cabin crew, LEVEL also won’t be operating with low costs either.

(Remember that there is no Air Passenger Duty out of Barcelona so you can’t directly compare this pricing with what you would pay out of London.)

Level airline

What about Avios?

This is what we know:

All LEVEL fares, including the cheapest, will earn Avios points – but not many.  The cheapest Economy tickets will earn 10% (not a typo!) of the miles flown.  Premium Economy tickets will earn at least 100% of the miles flown.

You can redeem Avios for flights on LEVEL – see below

You can use ‘part pay with Avios’ when booking flights on LEVEL, although your Avios will need to be in Iberia Plus and not British Airways Executive Club.  Remember that you can use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move them for free.

How many Avios will I need?

LEVEL is pricing off the standard Iberia Plus redemption chart.

Barcelona to Los Angeles, for example, will cost 50,000 Avios + £175.20 in July.  This is for the same dates I priced above where a cash ticket had a base fare of $763 (£615).  You would be getting 0.88p per Avios on this basis.

It could be even better, depending on whether Avios tickets include a free checked suitcase or not. (EDIT: comments below suggest Avios tickets get free seat selection, free hot meal and a free suitcase.)

Premium Economy is 87,500 Avios + £175.20.

These Avios flights can only be booked via Iberia Plus.  They cannot be booked with Avios on the BA website.

Given that availability to the US for Avios is often tricky over the Summer, you might want to take a look at this especially in Premium Economy.

Is LEVEL going to be a success?

Who remembers Go?  Or Buzz (because KLM also failed with a low-cost short haul airline)?  On the other hand, IAG’s Vueling has grown strongly even though it has a terrible reputation for operating performance.

The best thing to say is that LEVEL is a low risk gamble for IAG.  The pilots and crew are already employed by Iberia.  The two new A330 aircraft will easily find a new home within IAG if this venture fails.

The real question is whether Barcelona has enough people to support these services.  Norwegian is launching Barcelona – Oakland in June so it will interesting to see how the two compete.  The other three routes may be a captive market for those looking to fly direct.  If it works, you could image a similar operation being launched from, say, Manchester.

You can learn more on the LEVEL website here.

PS.  Since I wrote this, I found out that LEVEL flights are to be included in the AA / BA / Iberia / Finnair Joint Business Agreement on North American routes.  This disrupts the entire economics, since the revenue is partly given away to partners whilst IAG picks up a slice of revenue from the ‘legacy’ carriers on North American routes.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (73)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Alan says:
    18 Mar18 March 07:51

    Yikes, looks horrible – definitely not something I’d fly or redeem on! Those thin seats are bad enough for a couple of hours short-haul flying, nevermind a longhaul flight!

  • Marc says:
    18 Mar18 March 07:58

    Easy explanation for the name. The Barcelona ICAO code is LEBL, which when read sounds something like “lebel”. Level could just be an evolution from Lebel. Interestingly it’s the first airline same which is an palindrome!

  • James67 says:
    18 Mar18 March 08:12

    Why are IAG doing this? I fail to see the point given the flag carriers are effectively LCC anyway. It’seems not just IAG, others including AF are at it too despite the failures of the past. Do they seriously expect to hurt the likes of Norwegian and Air Asia X with such pathletic efforts? Sooner or later Ryanair and/or Easyjet will retaliate to Norwegian but will do so by placing a new order for 10s of cheap a330s 787s to support the venture

    • the real harry1 says:
      18 Mar18 March 09:02

      Good question. See the IAG investors press release:
      Willie Walsh, IAG chief executive, said: “LEVEL is an exciting new IAG airline brand which will bring a stylish and modern approach to flying at prices that are even more affordable. It will benefit from having the strength of one of the world’s largest airline groups behind it.
      “LEVEL will become IAG’s fifth main airline brand alongside Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia and Vueling. It will complement our existing airline portfolio and further diversify our current customer base.
      “Barcelona is Vueling’s home base and this will allow customers to connect from Vueling’s extensive European network onto LEVEL’s longhaul flights.
      “This is just the start. We’re really excited about the opportunities for expansion and we plan to bring LEVEL to other European destinations”.

      So the official line is effectively saying LEVEL is there to provide a long haul option for incoming Barcelona Vueling customers (the hub & spoke idea) – rather than simply making Vueling add on some LH flights, they thought they wanted different branding, different configuration planes and a different LCC pricing structure to Vueling – which is logical enough.

      I don’t know too much about Barcelona passenger numbers but presumably IAG have calculated that there will be enough people wanting to start or connect for these 4 routes to work profitably from year 1. (Catalonia is the wealthiest region in Spain & the most industrialised; population 7.5m.)

      I suspect deterring Norwegian from expansion at BCN will be part of the strategy.But probably IAG are also thinking it’s the right time to try and make LH work profitably on LH routes, that if it works out of BCN it will also work from other key airports. I get the point about those seats but if you were in the younger demographic (say, under 30), you’d probably be more interested in saving money than a few hours of mild discomfort.

      • James67 says:
        18 Mar18 March 11:37

        If that’s it, as seems most plausible, then they don’t seem to be going at it with any great ambition and conviction although I appreciate they have to start someplace. In effect, what we have is an IAG LCC they hope will appeal to the LCC LH market while they also have LCC products and services on their flag carriers where passengers, duped or otherwise, are still willing to pay well above average fares. The only reason I can think of why BA continue to get away with the latter is a combination of LHR monopoly, captive corporate custom, and traveller ignorance.

        I am astonished they went for 232 as opposed to 333 seat configuration and if Level is a success then it will be interesting to see how long they can resist the temptation to increase dendity. In my economy flying days I loved the a330 precisely because of the 232 configuration. Back in 2015 when I tried Etihad in both business and economy I actually enjoyed my flight from EDI-AUH in a330 economy whilst the return in business was my worst ever flying experience. However, the problem I find with economy seats is that if I cannot get comfortable in the first hour or so then I spend the whole journey uncomfortable. From experuence I also found I’m ok in an economy seat on a daytime flight for up to about 7-8 hours but beyond that I usually found it very unpleasant.

      • Julian says:
        19 Mar19 March 00:43

        Wee Willie seems to have forgotten all about little old Iberia Express, unlike Vueling the most punctual and ontime international airline So that means six and not five IAG Airline brands in total.

        But LEVEL seems to be every much of a Mickey Mouse additional airline brand as Iberia Express (unlike Vueling which is always kept completely separate in terms of booking websites and its own proper separate in flight magazine) with no flight booking engine of its own and instead relying entirely on the main iberia.com booking system. Even more unbelievably it is currently completely impossible to find the airline home page just by entering “LEVEL” + “airline” or similar in Google and you will only get there by using the flylevel.com URL in one of the IAG press releases.

        But anyway why does Willie want to have anything to do with it when the fact that the only hub is BCN and there are no flights from London clearly says that this is a further Spanish or Iberia originated airline launch. So surely far more sensible to put Cruz’s name on the press release when it was quite clearly all his idea.

        I checked a few flight prices and while the pathetically unreliable and out of date Skyscanner full month price chart shows the odd £68 or £78 single still there they all turn out to now cost over £200 one way when you click through to them. So same cost as a normal airline to LAX but without a meal, drink or a hold bag…………….

        • Callum says:
          19 Mar19 March 04:00

          Why on Earth would they put the BA CEO in charge of an Iberia subsidiary? And why on Earth would IAG be so aghast at the prospect of a Spanish airline? I’m trying to make sense of all of that but it just reads like gibberish!

        • Lady London says:
          19 Mar19 March 22:54

          Welcome to the future.

    • Callum says:
      18 Mar18 March 12:14

      Because despite the incessant hissy fits on here, the flag carriers are not “effectively LCC” on their long haul routes.

      Why would IAG think they’re hurting AirAsiaX – an airline with no route overlap whatsoever? In what way are the efforts “pathetic”? If you’re referring to the frequencies then that’s exactly how Norwegian and AirAsiaX started out too… And no doubt BA and Iberia themselves.

  • AB says:
    18 Mar18 March 08:36

    At this day and age BA or anything remotely close to BA is far from my first choice of flying, BA used to be good, but it’s been deteriorating it’s services for years and it’s been a while since I booked a flight with them. There are far better choices out there if you are prepared to change flights in main land Europe.

  • Frank says:
    18 Mar18 March 08:49

    I booked Business Class Heathrow to Dublin via Reward Flight saver on 9/3/17 for travel 13/3/17.

    The booking showed Club Europe, but I was refused entry to the lounge at Heathrow. Only explanation was “the ticket not valid for lounge”. Baggage, Fast Track, seating & food all matched the old Business Class.

    Ironically while I was waiting for the flight, a survey from BA asked for my experience of visiting the lounge. I have complained to BA & awaits their response.

    • Anna says:
      18 Mar18 March 09:10

      I’ve had that a couple of times, but when I asked them to double check they relented. Your itinerary should also state that you have lounge access on a CE flight, so it’s always worth printing that and taking it with you for future reference.

      • Anna says:
        18 Mar18 March 10:03

        Thinking back, I do recall the staff member on the desk checking our eligibility and then telling us that they’re not always given the right information about who is and isn’t allowed in the lounge – not sure whether this is poor communications or an effort to get lounge user numbers down by feigning ignorance!

  • Tony Burns says:
    18 Mar18 March 08:52

    It is nothing to do with BA or Cruz for that matter. They already have a similar operation starting from Gatwick this year.
    Norwegian are already strong in Spain so won’t stop that.
    However worth noting Norwegian are looking at reducing short-haul routes in/out of Gatwick because of the competition.
    For some reason the IAG group is very concerned about Norwegian who I fly with short-haul and are very good if a bit prone for delay’s.

  • Michael says:
    18 Mar18 March 09:03

    To be fair re: pricing, when I left over yesterday morning there were returns to both OAK and LAX for £175 in July and August. Which can’t be sneezed at for 13 hours of flying each way….

  • Mark says:
    18 Mar18 March 09:27

    Barcelona is a major cruise port for American passengers on European cruises, so it makes sense for that to be the hub airport.

    UK Govt and APD encouraging a four flight round trip to the USA, for a so called green tax its not very green.

    • the real harry1 says:
      18 Mar18 March 09:43

      I don’t think anybody sees APD as a green tax, it’s just plucking another feather for the Revenue

      • Mark says:
        18 Mar18 March 09:51

        Gordy Brown did in 2007 when he doubled APD. Or at least he said it was. Dont tell me he lied……

        • the real harry1 says:
          18 Mar18 March 10:09

          DT: The Government sold APD to the public as a “green” tax, yet not a penny has been spent on environmental causes. The tax generates £2 billion a year. [£3.2b in 2016/17.] The new system is expected to bring in £3.5 billion by 2012. Yet airlines are adamant that they already cover the cost of their carbon emissions. This tax, based on distance travelled, does not reward those who improve fuel efficiency. Environmental groups say it could slow investment in greener technologies and deter passengers from offsetting emissions on the grounds that they are already “doing their bit” by paying APD.

          HMG: In 2011, the Treasury launched a consultation on potential revisions to Air Passenger Duty. In their consultation they stated “Air passenger duty is primarily a revenue raising duty which makes an important contribution to the public finances, whilst also giving rise to secondary environmental benefits”. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130129110402/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/condoc_responses_air_passenger_duty.pdf

          Wiki: One of the stated benefits of APD was to offset the environmental impact of air travel but critics point out that the tax takes no account of the efficiency of the aircraft. An airline using an old inefficient plane is treated equally to one using the latest most efficient engines.

          • Mark says:
            18 Mar18 March 10:29

            Don’t tell me that flying from Gatwick to Dublin to Gatwick to Vegas isn’t greener than Gatwick to Vegas……..

          • Anon says:
            18 Mar18 March 14:50

            What about Inverness and Jersey? – clearly no need to be green if you live there…

            If Gov’s were serious about Green Taxes like APD, they’d just ration CO2 emissions on an individual basis.

            Hope they don’t, I do love a good curry… :p

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