Is British Airways getting rid of the Club Europe business class console table?

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• Nigel says:

  23 Feb23 February 06:36

  As i havd said previously…it looks like Cruzer is pushing his salary payers further and further until they really do leave in droves. Hes now getting mighty close in my book and if it is to accommidate another passenger in the reduced 7 rows then that will be it for Club Europe.
  Just need Branson to slip in here….

• JamesB says:

  23 Feb23 February 06:45

  I seem to recall LH had middle seat trays but it is some years since I flew them, BMI days.

  • Czechoslovakia says:

    23 Feb23 February 07:54

    They still do. Not on all aircraft types, but 320 family definitely.

• Bkev says:

  23 Feb23 February 07:37

  I don’t understand. Where do they expect me to put my champagne?

  • John says:

    23 Feb23 February 09:39

    In your mouth

• Talay says:

  23 Feb23 February 07:39

  If you have accountants who don’t understand the business at the top making decisions based on accountants at the bottom who also don’t understand the business then you cannot blame the engineers who are asked to remove weight because some clown has extrapolated 1kg per plane into a £1m saving across the fleet when they could save £10m by cutting out waste or changing some other practice.

  I like the table, though I never work on short haul flights. It is just better for drinks than the back of the chair in front.

  • RK says:

    23 Feb23 February 08:36

    +1…. totally agree with you!

  • Talay says:

    23 Feb23 February 09:19

    Accountants are often tasked with the “what if ?” scenario and perform that function well but not when it fails to be taken into context of customer service, which is not their domain. this is where management fails to understand and ramrods through a badly extrapolated theory into practice without considering the customer side implications.

    It hardly matters on low cost carriers but BA are not (yet) in that market place, though it seems they are trying the impossible of being low cost, low frills and business class all at the same time.

    • Scallder says:

      23 Feb23 February 09:30

      Talay – those what if scenarios that us accountants carry out usually (I can’t speak for BA analysts – and should point out here that they might not even be accountants themselves) go further than just the numbers. There’s no way in hell that if I was tasked with that I would be recommending the removal of the tray table to save weight- as has been mentioned above the net benefit is likely to be worse for BA.

      Even if the analysis was carried out by an accountant, I’m willing to bet this decision wasn’t taken by someone with an accounting qualification as from my personal experience it’s normally management higher up that jump on a number without taking into account the whole report and make decisions on that basis.

  • Simon says:

    23 Feb23 February 09:28

    Agreed. I’m an accountant and I would never have suggested this.
    The problem is the folks making the decision probably aren’t regular customers and so don’t understand their own product.

• Jamie says:

  23 Feb23 February 07:42

  Perhaps they are rmoving the table, not for weight savings, but to enable wuicker aircrft swapping between the IAG airlines. Given some airlines are all-Economy, this would save conversion time.

• Graeme says:

  23 Feb23 February 07:50

  Just travel with a plastic chopping board instead? Hey presto create your own additional flat surface..

  • Tim M says:

    23 Feb23 February 08:59

    Presumably, if BA are eliminating the Middle Seat Table, they will appear for sale on some channel and we can buy our own to travel with?

    There must be other uses for BA MSTs while travelling though chopping board is probably not one.

    Suggestions?

    • Steve says:

      23 Feb23 February 10:51

      Don’t use BA

• Alan says:

  23 Feb23 February 08:03

  As someone who travels with an infant who can sit up the middle table is a pain the little one wants to climb between mum and dad. If they had it as a pseudo seat I’d be happy (for the next 10 months at least)

• Anna says:

  23 Feb23 February 08:07

  Willie Walsh has just been on BBC news talking about profits and the issues BA has had recently. No sign of Alex!

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