British Airways throws Alex Cruz under a bus (again) in a Sunday Times interview

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• vlcnc says:

  10 Jul10 July 10:40

  I think the general gist of the article is correct, that Cruz did associate himself to cost-cutting too much. However I don’t think it is correct that he should be given credit for the improvements in catering and the business-class product – these would have happened anyway. There are lots of hardworking talented people behind the scenes in BA working to develop these things, many who we’ll never know the names of because they’re not senior enough, and their achievements are likely in spite of the appalling management they work under not because of it. I think the the protracted saga over the replacement of the yin-yang biz seat gives an indication of this – I think Cruz was likely a further hindrance rather than a hand in its replacement Club Suite. I have little sympathy for the man, and at the end of the day he chose what he wanted to be aligned with and what he wanted his legacy and he did it alienating a lot of people internally and externally. This man was not popular and rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and that is on him – when you’re at that level, a CEO, it’s your job to be good at this, to be a unifier and getting people singing from the same hymn sheet – and on this as well he was sincerely under-qualified and ill-suited for BA.

• GS says:

  10 Jul10 July 11:16

  For me the biggest issue is that investment in customer service is lacking. This is one key area that can differentiate from the budget airlines, but BA can’t seem to get their act together. I’ve had multiple poor experiences, you fill out a form for customer relations, and nothing happens. You can’t catch them on the phone either. 3 examples from the last couple of years. Example 1: I’m currently pursuing a MCOL because despite multiple attempts at a seemingly clear cut downgrade reimbursement, I’ve had nothing back. Example 2: I’ve had a “confirmed” £200 refund promised by a customer service agent for a cancelled leg of flight mysteriously turn into just £50 refunded with no way of following it up – simply misinformation, very sorry, someone quoted you the wrong number. Example 3: The regional connections are often delayed in my own experience, yet I recently booked CE MAN-LHR for a family member to connect to a Virgin flight. 2 hour delay, lost luggage, they had to take the next flight without anything. Filled in the form and still waiting many weeks on with nothing back. In summary, poor experiences happen (maybe too often in BA’s case), but if they can’t deal with them properly it just leads to resentment. I have shifted my own loyalty towards Virgin (plus redeeming via AF/KLM/others etc) as a result of this happening all too often.

• x2000traveller says:

  10 Jul10 July 12:30

  Cruz was an engaging character who fully recognised the challenge that BA has with competing on shorthaul routes with FR, U2, Wizzair and others as the market shifted to be interested in low fares/few frills (yes, even in Economy class on BA!) The reach of the low-cast carriers’ networks is now huge and they have adapted their offer (a bit) to attract business travel. But neither he or many other airline execs have worked how to combine the push to ‘low cost’ with a putting on a decent proposition for business travel. That’s become much more a problem now that eg. 25% of the high yield people are on Teams and not planes these days. Offering attractive Club class fares helps a bit (and is clearly filling BA’s long haul fleet very well) but, in the longer term, the temptation will be cut the size of the CW/CE cabins again, up the service and fares for the remaining seats and switch the rest to economy. Companies outside the financial and oil sectors are still severely limiting business travel budgets….this is probably a permanent feature of life these days.

  • vlcnc says:

    10 Jul10 July 12:42

    I disagree he was an engaging character and his solution for BA was very simplistic and stupid in just trying to ape what the low-cost carriers were doing. People who fly BA not flying for business on company expense, choose to fly them for a reason and their decision to isn’t solely on price alone. It’s getting the right mix right and he went too far. And here’s the thing even the cuts in shorthaul economy don’t make sense – you mention companies limiting business travel budges, actually this was even happening in finance. I was freelancing at a merchant bank a few years ago and they had stopped people flying in business shorthaul, only economy travel was allowed. One of the things people enjoyed still flying economy on BA was getting a full bar service – it’s not much but after long days in meetings in Europe somewhere, getting G&T complimentary gave a lot of good will to people who might then be willing to travel in their own time and on their own money with BA. You couldn’t buy that type of marketing.

    • Rob says:

      10 Jul10 July 12:48

      Yes, the failure to exploit the fact that many business travellers can’t expense alcohol is arguably a miss, although it’s also true that these people are often tied into corporate contracts and have to fly BA anyway.

      • vlcnc says:

        10 Jul10 July 12:55

        That is true, but previously it was a positive thing – “well least good ‘ole BA will give me my G&T on the way back home”, it was a small ditty of joy that left a good halo for BA. Now it is leaves a negative impression because it feels stingy especially in the context of having it before. Like BA should be striving to instill loyalty, getting people to WANT to fly with them and crucially people willing to pay to fly with them. You don’t get that from being miserly and stingy.

        • Londonsteve says:

          10 Jul10 July 23:45

          +1 They underestimate the pull of a free G’n’T on board. The perceived value is the £7.20 they charge, the real cost is pence to distribute duty free miniatures. The free drink and sandwich would make me inclined to pay an extra tenner on the fare right away. In reality they ride the ‘free refreshments’ thing while distributing a thimble of water and a cereal bar which is verging on being fraudulent in their advertising.

      • Londonsteve says:

        11 Jul11 July 00:20

        I’d love to know which firms have corporate contracts that tie their employees to BA. I worked at 3 banks and we were compelled by travel policy to choose the lowest cost flight (subject to flexibility about airport and departure time, etc.). In practice many flew BA justified by the lower cost of getting to LHR or LCY, or because colleagues were more likely to be living in west London, but this is byproduct of London’s size and the high cost of ground transport which works to BA’s advantage.

        • Rob says:

          11 Jul11 July 09:17

          Proper bankers use their own money to pay the difference for Business Class in this scenario, rather than be seen down the back 🙂 It’s generally a good investment too given the cost vs tier points and extra Avios earned.

          Before it’s too late, learn that the ‘Alex’ cartoon in the Telegraph is not a comic, it’s your instruction manual.

• Gareth says:

  10 Jul10 July 15:39

  Yes there are some good things now and BA club out of Heathrow for us gold members is as good as it gets on the ground , only a few airlines beat it in the air. But BA was very slow upgrading it’s club world product. For a long time was seriously behind the times.

  There is no sign of them upgrading the Gatwick longhaul fleet, and it’s not as if they are any cheaper per mile than Heathrow.bIn my case we would fly direct with BA to Capetown from Heathrow even if it had old seats, rather than two flights with others. But on many of Gatwick flights would not pay for BA with cash. Only reason using BA for Mauritius flight is managed to use a 241 voucher.

• Chris Pocock says:

  10 Jul10 July 19:17

  Lots of comments here on seats, meals, lounges etc. I’m more interested in BA’s record on delays and cancellations. Poor, I believe. And how they deal with the affected passengers. Badly, I know from recent personal experience.

• Joe says:

  10 Jul10 July 19:38

  Honestly so much of the woes is down to poor training and poor quality control when it comes to staff imo. There is no reason why service quality in the air can’t be at the level of a middle east airline. You just need staff to take pride in their work and know that anything less in front of the customer will not be tolerated. With great service comes forgiveness on so much else.

• M Raggett says:

  11 Jul11 July 10:25

  The board appointed Walsh. They knew his history. Why have they still got Waterside and all those expensive execs when the company is shrinking? That money saved could be spent onboard for the pax

• Ian Flyer says:

  27 Jul27 July 10:43

  after many years of cr*p treatment onboard and on the ground, including particularly ignorant customer services, I’m an ABBA fan.
  The culture extends from management through to the lowest cabin crew in denigrating anyone travelling in Economy.

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