What British Airways news did we get from IAG’s Capital Markets Day?

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• Malcolm says:

  30 Nov30 November 06:49

  What about dividends Rob? Time to start repaying shareholder loyalty?

  • Panda Mick says:

    30 Nov30 November 08:53

    You could, of course, read the slides……

• jj says:

  30 Nov30 November 07:22

  First takeaway for me is the focus on the Americas (BA, North; Iberia, Latin) rather than Europe, Middle East or Africa. Expect new destinations and frequency improvements to focus on transatlantic routes.

  Second takeaway is the big focus on quality improvements for BA. Financial markets love cost reductions and often cynically read ‘investment’ as ‘overspending’, so IAG is probably stating clear intent here. Expect improvements to be targeted at Net Promoter Score uplift rather than making bloggers or HfP commentators happy. If staff training, improved lounges, a focus on punctuality and better IT don’t deliver measurable results, management will be in trouble.

  Third takeaway is the growing importance of premium leisure, particularly for BA. Premium leisure traveller have more time and want to be pampered, while business travellers want total efficiency and their needs met with no fuss.

  Fourth takeaway is the growing importance of Avios and loyalty. Expect new and improved ways of earning and spending points – which to be fair, has been a recurring story in recent years.

  The hidden takeaway is that BA/IAG have no intention of competing with ME3 carriers. Quality improvements need only be relative to US/European carriers, so don’t expect too much.

  • Rob says:

    30 Nov30 November 07:43

    In theory anything that improved NPS should also please our readers …..

    • jj says:

      30 Nov30 November 08:24

      True. But your readers also want many things that would make no difference to NPS, and they will probably be disappointed.

  • BBbetter says:

    30 Nov30 November 07:49

    First takeaway is somewhat linked to the hidden takeaway? BA has given up the Asia routes to QR in return for focusing on TATL.

    • Rob says:

      30 Nov30 November 08:46

      They do want to bring it back. Was talk of KL returning – very advanced apparently – until the aircraft numbers didn’t work. Once the 779 fleet arrives in 3 years …..

  • BJ says:

    30 Nov30 November 08:02

    Oh please … this is a British blog, can we do without the Americanisms, this one in particular has been driving me nuts lately 🙂

    Save our Great British Takeaway!

    • AJA says:

      30 Nov30 November 08:50

      I thought take away was British? Don’t they say take out over the pond? 😉

      All of those initiatives remind me of the great Anna Rampton, Director of Better, in the comedy W1A. Her mantra was “The fact is this is about identifying what we do best and finding more ways of doing less of it better” 😀

      • BJ says:

        30 Nov30 November 10:28

        AFAIK takeaway is British within the context of shop/food, takeaway in the context of ‘facts’ as used here and increasingly in the British media is American usage. Might be wrong but that’s the way I understand it. Regardless, there’s obvious stuff I should be more worried about 🙂

• x2000traveller says:

  30 Nov30 November 07:37

  Good summary. The increase in on-time departures on time is particularly noticeable, and welcome.

  In terms of route structure, did the presentation not also mention the generally drift to expanding the routes to Southern Europe (more leisure travel) away from Northern Europe (too much competition eg. from Star Alliance carriers and KLM)?

  As you say, competition with the ME3 world is difficult (not least because of route authorities), which does put the earlier strategy of building One World and IAG alliances to link the Americas with at least some parts of Western Europe into perspective! From the point of view of financial stability, this was a good move.

• No longer Entitled says:

  30 Nov30 November 07:40

  It is surprising that only 66% of passengers live in the South East when virtually 100% of flights abroad depart from the South East. Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy.

  • Bill says:

    30 Nov30 November 07:52

    You beat me to it. Laughable statement from them

  • riku says:

    30 Nov30 November 07:55

    but they offer the concept of “connecting flight” – eg somebody from mainland Europe might fly to LHR and take a transatlantic flight on BA. Those passengers don’t even live in the UK but still fly on “British” Airways

  • jj says:

    30 Nov30 November 08:15

    They’re probably using the ITL1 Statistical Regions of the UK. If so, the South East is quite tightly defined and large parts of the South West, Wales, West Midland, East Midlands and East of England are an easy drive from Heathrow.

    • Ruralite says:

      30 Nov30 November 10:42

      Depends what you classify the East of England as. Yes if you are fairly near the M1/A1/M11, but the further east you get the worse the road network is and, whilst mileage to Heathrow as the crow flies might be reasonable, it can be a long and in some cases winding road until you get to a motorway/decent A road! Provided they are competitive and fit with my schedule I am more inclined to go with KLM than drive to Heathrow or Gatwick or, via Dubai, use the Emirates car service – yes there’s a supplement now but they’ve never let me down and it’s much less stressful.

  • Novice says:

    30 Nov30 November 09:36

    Too true. I really wish they gave a **** about MAN.

    • NorthernLass says:

      30 Nov30 November 11:36

      What’s the problem? You can have your fill of sparkling wine on draught in the Escape Lounge – at least until you get kicked out at 7.45 pm while waiting for your delayed connection to LHR 😂

• SK says:

  30 Nov30 November 08:05

  I fly with Qatar on biz these days & found them to be of much more value for money in terms of departure time, on board services, seats, food, and lounges. BA isn’t anywhere it!

• Ben says:

  30 Nov30 November 08:08

  Hi Rob,

  Was there anything said about improving the experience for PRMs? Will that be included in end to end service?

• T says:

  30 Nov30 November 08:12

  “Modernisation of the IT estate”
  Please add council in this sentence Rob and team!

• Lee says:

  30 Nov30 November 08:12

  BA already have a world class passenger experience, it’s just not a positive one.

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