Highlights from Alex Cruz’s interview in the Mail on Sunday

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• Lochlann says:

  29 Jan29 January 05:36

  On my flight to Muscat a few days ago the passenger next to me spent a good 10-15 minutes detailing how bad Alex Cruz was to the cabin crew. He wasn’t getting much pushback on his arguments either – but that may not have been the crew agreeing, may just have been the path of least resistance (pretty certain he wasn’t going to change his mind!)

  • Billy says:

    29 Jan29 January 11:24

    Funnily enough, I met a member of crew who thought he was great.

    Don’t read too much into crew not pushing back: there is an awkward dynamic between listening and appeasing a customer, or refuting them and potentially losing them.

    • Rob says:

      29 Jan29 January 11:27

      He is, by all accounts, very open to crew and keen to chat. No-one will ever tell you that he hides away in his office all day.

  • vlcnc says:

    29 Jan29 January 11:27

    Sounds like me on the way back from Istanbul in August xD

    • vlcnc says:

      29 Jan29 January 11:28

      The crew member I chatted I should add was in complete agreement with me, and was not too complimentary about how they treat their staff!

• Tariq says:

  29 Jan29 January 05:48

  Or perhaps they didn’t know who he was.

  • TripRep says:

    29 Jan29 January 06:21

    Or even care if they did know him? ie They are hardly going to bring up the pax complaints to Cruz himself.

    “Whatever we do, BA will always have a premium edge to it.”. In fairness he could mean the CE offerings on short haul still exist, still a terrible response tho, maybe the reporter was inaccurate (again)

    Rob – nice to see your firing on all cylinders, sure this will get the HFP juices following… 😀

    • barry cutters says:

      29 Jan29 January 08:33

      you could argue he was talking about BOB. i guess M&S does give it a premium edge…

      • Prins Polo says:

        29 Jan29 January 11:30

        Sorry, but there is nothing premium in the crisps, percy pigs or the ploughman sandwich (there is also nothing “seasonal” in them – another PR b/s).

      • Lady London says:

        29 Jan29 January 21:45

        …. and there is nothing premium in M&S these days either, sadly.
        A very bad decision by British Airways, to pick M&S.
        At least they’re repairing some of the damage by choosing Do&Co for J meals now.

      • Crafty says:

        31 Jan31 January 07:10

        M&S Simply Food has been consistently rated the UK’s favourite retail proposition in OC&C’s annual index, so your opinion does not stack up against large scale research.

• Paul says:

  29 Jan29 January 06:33

  It was the Sunday Mail so was not seen in this house. I won’t allow its hate through the door. It’s never been concerned about putting the truth before a good story and frankly Mr Crux should be ashamed of giving the rag any access at all.

  • Trevor says:

    29 Jan29 January 07:30

    Well said

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:03

    To be pedantic the Sunday Mail is a Scottish paper, owned by the Mirror group. It’s effectively the Sunday edition of the Daily Record. The Sunday Sun is a local paper for the north east of England. This is why the Sunday edition is called the Mail on Sunday and when the News of the World closed down they created The Sun on Sunday ????

  • Scott Smith says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:45

    Couldn’t agree more

• JamesB says:

  29 Jan29 January 07:08

  If he wants to avoid the £44.91 LHR service charge, compete with the LCC on a level playing field, and attempt to grow his business then the solution is simple. Except, would any of us in the regions really jump for jou anymore if we could fly BA direct when their premium product is decidedy inferior to that of LCC? Based on my first experiences witn Easyjet last year, I know which one I would choose.

  • Anna says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:03

    LCCs can’t (for now) beat RFS, so yes, I would jump for joy at more direct routes from MAN. If Amex do change the rules on churning, these are going to be all I can afford in terms of avios!

    • JamesB says:

      29 Jan29 January 08:24

      That’s avios delusion Anna unless you have a stash that cost you nothing or close to it, and I’ve no doubt you do 🙂 However, for most people their avios cost them something, when addec to the RFS fee I doubt the price is much different from LCC. Besides, a large number probably prefer to keep them for longhaul. I suppose the opportunity to earn tier points would sway many people though. Ultimately the arguement is mute though, I doubt we will ever see much of BA outside London.

      • Doug M says:

        29 Jan29 January 09:23

        If you want to get the most value out of Avios you’ve paid for, then RFS is often a very sensible use. I don’t think you can compare a cancelable and changeable ticket like RFS with a LCC one and its restrictions.
        Long haul value is determined more by 2-4-1 use, and particular routes that don’t usually fall in price, like South Africa. Much LH use is not such great value with taxes and fees, when compared to Ex-EU.

      • Anna says:

        29 Jan29 January 11:48

        I consider they do cost me nothing as they are accrued via everyday spend. So not a “moot” point for me.

    • CV3V says:

      29 Jan29 January 10:28

      You can often get GLA to Stansted (!) for about £20 – £20 return, for a direct trip to London that seems better than RFS.

      • Anna says:

        29 Jan29 January 11:49

        You can’t get anything like that to a European destination, with luggage included, at peak time.

      • CV3V says:

        29 Jan29 January 12:42

        Anna – my example/point was flights to London, and i have bought such fares at peak time and just a week before flying.

        But worth a look – for Europe i would be charged for 2 RFS, say GLA – LHR – AMS. Ironically the BA website at the moment wont even let me do this as one booking, reports an error! This would cost 16,000 avios and £70. If we stick with an avios valuation of 1p, then total cost of flight is £230 in economy, which is laughable. I can fly Norwegian to the US for that price.

        I can get to many european cities for for a whole lot less than £230 (with bags), and going direct to say AMS would take just over an hour. Even if i was an avios millionaire going via LHR would meed a minimum of 4 hours (assuming decent connection times were available), excluding the inevitable delays (and winter cancellations).

      • Anna says:

        29 Jan29 January 13:43

        Direct BA flights from MAN have largely negated the need to do RFS via London for me any more, that was my point.

    • JamesB says:

      29 Jan29 January 15:14

      @Doug, Cancel yes, at a minimum £17.50 per sector. Changeable, possibly but not guaranteed, depends on reward seat availability..

      @ Anna/CV3V. Agree luggage can change issue but most can do shortha with cabin bags only. CV3V is illustrating point I was making. As a further example I flew 4x easy jet and 2x Brussels Airlines sectors last year for just over £150 total. That was by booking when I was ready at the time we needed the seats, I made no effort to find special offers or deals.

  • Tim M says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:05

    Agreed. 1) BA is not ‘British’ but merely ‘London’ (with a couple of Embrayer 190’s dispatched to the ‘regions’ for the weekend) and its economy product survives on waning goodwill. 2) BA economy is no match for EasyJet or Jet2. Alex Cruz should try them.

    BA’s biggest asset is now the landing slots at Heathrow – hence they are opposed to a third runway there. If a fair, regular system were introduced to allocate landing slots at all UK airports, BA would be finished in a matter of months.

    • Callum says:

      29 Jan29 January 09:54

      London is in Britain, despite the incessant, incredibly dull and rather tedious London Airways quip certain people love to throw around…

      • Mike says:

        29 Jan29 January 10:14

        er London is…well London. So mainly only flying out of London does make BA London Airways.

      • Catalan says:

        29 Jan29 January 10:56

        Agreed Callum. No doubt their equivalents in France or the Netherlands call Air France Paris Airways, or KLM Amsterdam Airlines!
        London is the powerhouse of the UK economy. Get over it!

      • Leo says:

        29 Jan29 January 11:38

        Amen to that!

    • Tim M says:

      29 Jan29 January 11:35

      The Greater London population is 8.54 million vs. the UK population of 66.6 million, i.e. the whole of Greater London is under 13% of the UK population.

      “London is the powerhouse of the UK economy”. Tut, tut.

      London is the parasite of the UK economy – creaming off its commission from the produce of the rest of the UK. London has never made anything of significance but has got rich on the backs of the rest of the UK.

      Decades of London-centric policies have brought us where we are now: hard-working people living off food banks still bailing out the banks and a political system with in rigor mortis because the wealthiest can only lose by any conceivable change.

      Change will come. BA will die. House prices will plummet to less than 10% of current values. It is only a matter of time and the good sense of the British people.

      • Catalan says:

        29 Jan29 January 11:41

        And then you woke up 😉

    • Chris L says:

      29 Jan29 January 16:06

      I feel your pain, Tim, as a former Londoner, now living in ‘the provinces’. I think the issue from an airline is that BA do not have a direct competitor – i.e. a carrier who can offer BOTH LH and SH routes direct from the UK. Virgin only offer a (comparatively small) range of LH routes, while Easyjet and FlyBE only offer SH, as do Ryanair. Therefore BA have no need to fully service Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham etc as they previously did when BMI was a competitor – they can just force people living outside the South East to connect at LHR or LGW because there aren’t many other options for them. Until Virgin swallow up FlyBE or Easyjet (or vice versa), we’re left with only one carrier who can offer the full mix of LH and SH.

      For those of us who want to commit to a loyalty scheme (as many on this site do), your best option if you’re in the UK is normally BA, unless you’re willing to be forced to connect somewhere like Schiphol or CDG or you only want to fly around Europe.

      P.S. to those who are fed up with ‘London Airways’ type comments, when you feel like your capital city spends its life putting two fingers up at you, you’re bound to feel somewhat aggrieved. There is no need for you to engage with these comments if they don’t interest you.

      • Catalan says:

        29 Jan29 January 17:13

        But Chris L, Virgin did try with their Little Red brand and it failed after 18 months due to lack of business. Until the government invest more in the north there will be no need for the likes of BA to set up expensive bases in Manchester, Birmingham etc

      • Catalan says:

        29 Jan29 January 18:11

        ….and further to our discussion look what’s just appeared:

        “A planned new transatlantic service from Birmingham Airport has been cancelled before it even launched. Primera Air announced in July that it was launching four flights a week from Birmingham to Boston which was due to start on June 22. But the Latvian budget airline has decided to abandon the plans due to poor take up by customers. (Birmingham Mail Online)”

      • Tim M says:

        29 Jan29 January 18:46

        Chris L, great contribution!

        We are very much in a topsy-turvy situation. The environment is rising to the forefront of concerns yet there is zero tax on aviation fuel. I can fly to Canada for less than the cost of a train ticket to London. Things are perversely wrong.

        But they will change. It is inevitable. Point-to-point services on the likes of the dream liner will take over. Hubs such as Heathrow will be considered costly, bad polluters and generally unwelcome in society. Heathrow will have to re-invent itself as a local airport for local people – if it survives.

        I have a couple of BA flights booked for this year. I remember flying British European Airways, from Manchester. I will regard these BA flights as a nostalgia trip, like the last Concorde flight.

      • Nick says:

        29 Jan29 January 19:09

        Hahahahahahaha so when they launch to great fanfare, they’re Danish. When they fail, they’re suddenly Latvian! Shows no bias at all among the press there 😉

      • Chris Lang says:

        29 Jan29 January 19:39

        I’m not blaming the airlines – it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem, namely the imbalance in the UK economy, but that’s somewhat beyond the scope of this discussion so I won’t go there!

        If you’re a business in the North-East or the South-West you’re immediately at a disadvantage due to poor transport links (not just air) and the government could do more to incentivise airlines to serve more airports and help the economy in that area. They do also need to invest in transport in general. Can you believe that in order to get a train to Heathrow from my home in Cheltenham I either have to get a bus from Reading or go all the way into Paddington and back out again?!

        Re the Primera route to Boston, I think it has suffered a) from the fact that Primera is a little-known brand in the UK and b) that they’re clearly targeting leisure travellers on a route I wouldn’t normally say is primarily a leisure route. They are also adding a daily service from Birmingham to Newark as well as Toronto, so it’s a net gain for Birmingham overall.

      • Callum says:

        29 Jan29 January 20:02

        Feeling like “your capital city spends it’s life putting two fingers up at you” is exactly what I was “mocking”, for want of a better word.

        It’s one of the world’s biggest and most important business cities with a large affluent population. I’m incredibly sorry Ipswich or Preston can’t compete with that and support large international airline hubs, but it’s about time you got over it.

        (And no, I’m not from London nor do I even find it a particularly pleasant place to stay for more than a couple of days)

• Talay says:

  29 Jan29 January 07:30

  That the Mail would write such tosh is utterly believable but that Mr Cruz would consider them the medium of choice for a fairly important announcement means that his compass is off heading.

  It would seem that the sensible talk Rob had with him on the tube seems to be the exception and not the rule.

  • Anna says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:06

    Yes, but remember Spain is the land which invented Hello! magazine and all its imitators!

    • Rob says:

      29 Jan29 January 08:32

      The Mail is a sensible place for this story. Rather like politics, the middle market is the one that can swing either way, so to speak.

      • Robbie says:

        29 Jan29 January 10:27

        Agree – MoS is not the Daily Mail – and Ruth Sunderland is a v professional business journalist.
        Re Cardiff fitting out, seems to be some confusion. Rather than ignoring, she may not have understood/have been told that the short haul upgrade includes losing a toilet. Or if it is long haul work as quoted, could that be the 777 densification in economy? Clearly some BA PR spin in there….
        Mr Cruz does seem to be rowing back a little, however…

    • Andrew says:

      29 Jan29 January 08:47

      They were “invented” by publishers simply as a way to use up spare printing capactiy when the bottom fell out of the adult top-shelf market.

      • Jack says:

        29 Jan29 January 10:10

        “the bottom fell out…”
        Unintended pun?!

  • Billy says:

    29 Jan29 January 11:26

    It’s also one of the biggest newspapers in the country.

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  29 Jan29 January 07:59

  It’s worth remembering that the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday are different teams (Dacre is not involved in the Sunday edition, so the DM was strongly pro-Brexit and the MoS advocated remain) this could mean that the Daily Mail is still strongly critical of BA.

  When did the Mail stop being available in the lounges? Wonder if anyone has missed it! Do they still have The Sun (a really odd choice for a lounge)?

  • John says:

    29 Jan29 January 13:15

    Times, FT, Shortlist and NY Times International piled up this morning.

• Riku says:

  29 Jan29 January 08:18

  It is a bit pointless to criticize the “journalism” of the Mail. This is after all the paper that had pictures of Kai Tak, the old airport in Hong Kong with planes almost “hitting” the TV aerials of apartment blocks when coming in to land. The idea of perspective and the building being between the camera and the plane much further away was too much for them to understand.

• shd says:

  29 Jan29 January 08:45

  Any chance of some details on how the PSC varies across UK airports, Rob?

  • Alan says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:12

    Unless I’ve missed something (Which is entirely possible), that link is for APD not for PSC.

    • shd says:

      29 Jan29 January 11:00

      Indeed.

      In a nutshell, for the shortest flights, the PSC at LHR is a few quid more than at LGW.

      Doesn’t explain why BA’s cheapest ex-LHR fares are *so* much more than ex-LGW…

      Be nice to see an article explaining how the PSC varies around the UK ??

    • Nick says:

      29 Jan29 January 19:16

      For historic reasons, that can’t be done. Heathrow and Gatwick are ‘regulated’ airports, which means the government sets the price they can charge (after lobbying from them of course!), and all airlines’ passengers there pay the same.
      Unregulated airports can charge what they like – and often have variable tariffs for airlines depending how much business they bring and/or what services they require. Obviously this is commercially sensitive so is not made public.

      Liverpool (etc.) are fully unregulated. MAN and STN were removed from the list a few years ago (about when Ryanair expanded into MAN).

      Therefore, the only fair (and publicly available) comparison of airport charges is LHR vs LGW, which Rob has kind of already done.

    • shd says:

      31 Jan31 January 08:51

      “For historic reasons, that can’t be done”

      Huh?

      “Obviously this is commercially sensitive so is not made public.”

      Dunno how hard you’ve looked, but I found UK PSC information in seconds.

      We may not know about any *rebates* that have been agreed between airlines and airports – but then again, would we know about fees, rebates and charging structure for big airlines at LHR and LGW (think of the CCR door at T5 and fees for fast-track security)?

      For published fares, the fare construction is, well, published. So for instance, STN-STR o/w with Eurowings:

      STN EW STR 33.59ENCWGOGB NUC 33.59 END ROE 0.744255 XT 13.00GB 11.62UB 4.60RA

      ITA Matrix will itemise all that out with descriptions, so “United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge Departures (UB) £11.62”

      Compare that to the same Eurowings route but departing LHR:

      LHR EW STR 64.49TNCWGOGB NUC 64.49 END ROE 0.744255 XT 13.00GB 19.30UB 4.60RA

      so that’s “United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge Departures (UB) £19.30”

      So in this case, the PSC at LHR is a whopping £7.68 more than at STN. Big deal – the exSTN ticket costs £55, and the exLHR costs £84.90. The higher PSC makes up only a quarter of the difference!

      Airlines charge more for flights departing LHR *because they can get away with it*. Time to stop blaming the PSC?

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