British Airways admits the A350 cabin layout has failed

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• qrfan says:

  7 Feb7 February 07:40

  Someone at BA needs to watch The Founder. Kitchen layout chalked on the floor, staff acting out meal preparation. Basic stuff…

• Catalan says:

  7 Feb7 February 08:09

  Goes to show Alex Cruz and team’s main focus was profit and shareholders. Passenger comfort and crew well-being were secondary.
  The undoing of his legacy will take some time.

  • Rob says:

    7 Feb7 February 08:34

    Except, of course, by annoying Club Suite passengers who struggle to get fed in a sensible timeframe, it puts people off BA which is bad for profits. Remember that 2.5 hour meal services were common pre covid.

    What is more shocking is that the only gain from this was 6 more economy seats, which will yield peanuts.

    • Catalan says:

      7 Feb7 February 09:53

      And those six seats are at the aft bulkhead resulting in limited recline. Brilliant

    • Richie says:

      7 Feb7 February 10:23

      BA could incentivise passengers not to eat a full main service with Avios.

    • John T says:

      7 Feb7 February 10:43

      Here’s the thing I never understand about densifying cabin layouts. Adding six Y seats at the expense of the comfort of 200+ other passengers will only make financial sense when every single Y seat on the flight is occupied. Even pre-covid there was rarely a flight I was on where every single Y seat was occupied on a wide body aircraft. If you don’t run your flights at 100% loads, why try and squeeze more seats in??

      • Nick says:

        7 Feb7 February 13:36

        Because you’ll still have the same problem even with fewer seats. It’s basic revenue management, you always allow space to be filled close to departure at high yield. Let’s say it’s 6 seats. Whatever your config, you’ll always leave 6 spare – the extra money is what’s already been made earlier. Changing that will push up average prices for everyone. (And occasionally flights do go full, even if you’ve never seen it!)

        • Rob says:

          7 Feb7 February 15:17

          This ignores basic rules of supply and demand though, which is where the densifying view falls down. Assume a 100 seat cabin and BA can sell:

          40 seat at £100
          40 seats at £50
          40 seats at £25

          If you add another six seats to your existing 100 seat aircraft, those seats are getting you £25. You are filling them at the bottom of the demand curve. On the numbers above, a 100 seat aircraft brings in £6,500. Add in another 6 seats (6%) only takes the total to £6,650 (up 2.3%). Not only that, but your 100 existing customers get crappier legroom to boot.

          The real problem comes if two of the 40 people willing to pay £100 walk away because they don’t like the tighter legroom you brought in to sell 6 seats at £25. On that basis, you’ve just reduced your revenue by adding seats.

        • Track says:

          7 Feb7 February 17:49

          Rob gave a good example of Supply/Demand curve for revenue management above.

          This is not like domestic US seats, where airlines constantly juggle passengers — to depart earlier, later, re-route on way to the same destination (eg, Chicago vs Ft Dallas vs N. Carolina, vs PHX vs NYC) — British Airways cannot do this between European cities.

          If I am a passenger paying the max-priced economy ticket close to departure, I might just stop and consider travelling in business for the same money.

          Ofc if I have inept corporate travel agency who operate on volume agreement with BA, they will shove me into Y/P as per corporate policy (eg, flights <6-8 hours) — but I would simply choose not to travel then.

        • Nick says:

          7 Feb7 February 18:12

          Rob is of course correct, if those two people will actually walk. Which there’s no evidence of – other than anecdotal whining on niche fora. And he’s also inadvertently proved why BA is incredibly smart in not allowing non-status customers to select seats in advance. Because by the same law of supply and demand there’ll be ‘good’ seats left for the last minute high yield customers. BA has ensured that these people will never see the back row seats with no window that don’t recline – but instead have structured it so these will always be left for O class cheapskates (or those on staff tickets!), reducing the likelihood the high yielders will walk away.

    • Rich says:

      7 Feb7 February 14:12

      So that explains why my meal was served flying over somewhere near Sarajevo on a recent flight from LHR to DXB. It took an absolute age!

• AJA says:

  7 Feb7 February 08:26

  Daft decision by BA to scrimp and save like that. How many A350s does BA now have?

  At least they are talking about changing the layout for remaining A350 orders. While they’re at it they should consider installing a 1st class cabin too.

  • planeconcorde says:

    7 Feb7 February 09:46

    According to the linked article. “British Airways has ordered a total of 18 Airbus A350’s and has so far taken delivery of eight of the aircraft…”

    • AJA says:

      7 Feb7 February 10:59

      Thanks. I didn’t click on the link.

• sayling says:

  7 Feb7 February 08:44

  Oh dear… does that mean we’ll soon be seeing lots of posts from people asking ‘how can I tell if I’m on the new, new A350’? 🤔 🤣

  • Jeff77 says:

    7 Feb7 February 20:08

    Haha

• David Sykes says:

  7 Feb7 February 08:44

  Id like to say “unbelievable” but this is so predictable of the lack of insight that BA has displayed commencing with W Walsh esq. and followed by puppet Cruz. I see no improvement imminent following the hot air email of the other day from the latest bean counter. BA needs leadership from someone fully appreciates quality in service and standards. Just because you used to fly a plane does not bestow these attributes on you – W Walsh clearly demonstrated. Until BA (and IAG) is led a by a suitably enlightened CEO, nothing will change.
  You sack all of your flight crew and cabin crew and then find that no one wants to work for you in the cabins when things open up again! Well, how can you be the slightest bit surprised by this?? It demonstrates poor working conditions and lack of understanding of basic business principles as well as total lack of appreciation that an excellent cabin experience is what brings people back.
  As for the dismal catering in Club, well, HfP readers will know exactly what Im talking about. Single tray, plastic covered dishes, a thimble full of champagne to “welcome” you on board served by a staff member looking like a bull dog chewing a wasp – she is rightly miffed I expect at her new pay scale! Breakfast yesterday was HALF a croissant with a bit of fried egg and about 1 gram of smoked salmon. Utterly disgraceful. Thank goodness the arrivals lounge in T5 is open again.
  Things have GOT to change and change soon. The competition is sprinting ahead whilst BA with its incompetent management limps further and further behind with a broken femur. I’ll save my Avios until things improve dramatically, even if the 2 remaining 241 vouchers expire in 2023……
  Im disgusted with our national airline.

  • Rich says:

    7 Feb7 February 14:19

    The answer surely lies in how executives are incentivised and pre covid the shareholder measures were looking strong. The readership of HfP is not representative of BAs customer base and most infrequent travellers will be satisfied. I am no defender of BA by the way as they have messed me around a fair bit but I can see the bigger picture and it’s generally one of happy customers.

    • Rob says:

      7 Feb7 February 15:11

      Except its not. The NPS scores have been shockingly poor, albeit up 7 points on last year due to Club Suite according to the notes I saw last week.

• Harry Holden says:

  7 Feb7 February 09:20

  As much as slow service in Club was a problem, having crew arbitrarily close off the front toilet as passengers got in their way hacks me off.

  And the benefits of a single layout on each type will be lost with routes scheduled 350 will have two aircraft seating plans to choose from. Maybe on the Delta checks the cabin can be refitted to match the revised layout.

• Nick says:

  7 Feb7 February 09:53

  The food storage thing was indeed always wrong. Pre-covid the A350 was fully planned to operate Tokyo flights, which are some of the few to have two full hot meals in all cabins, and everything fitted nicely into the space available. It’s one of those occasions where a crewmour quickly gained ground but with no basis in fact.

  Everything else is absolutely true. CS was rushed because Airbus was ready to deliver and Alex was beholden to the ‘you’ve gotta have a door’ crowd on FT and (regrettably) here, so that became the ultimate goal rather than cabins that were actually workable. CW then became so large (because of doors and where they could put bulkheads) that it took more space than they’d hoped, hence squeezing in as many WT seats as possible. You can take a boy out of a LCC…

  • Andy says:

    7 Feb7 February 10:34

    Yeh, I’ve never understood the obsession with doors…

    I’ve not flown club suite but the seats on CXs A350s were private enough for me

    • Aston100 says:

      7 Feb7 February 10:40

      And the door on my clubsuite seat was so low, I could still see other passengers. I’m not even particularly tall.

  • Harry T says:

    7 Feb7 February 12:40

    I like the door on CS. You feel like you’re in a little cocoon if you recline and flatten your seat.

  • ChrisC says:

    7 Feb7 February 14:57

    You credit the shout loudest lot on flyer talk and here with too much influence.

    If BA did what some BA FT and HJfP posters demanded then it would be bankrupt!

• NorthernLass says:

  7 Feb7 February 10:19

  BA should just run everything past HFP before putting into practice. I distinctly recall us all commenting what a really bad idea the smaller toilets were at the time!

  • Lady London says:

    7 Feb7 February 11:00

    That one was worthy of Ryanair, and looked like it at the time.

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