Some reading and listening suggestions from CNN and Barry!

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• Nick says:

  25 Feb25 February 14:45

  Wow , I didn’t realise that airline margins are only between 5% -7%, though it was much more than that. Interesting.

  • JDB says:

    25 Feb25 February 15:35

    There’s a very big range of margins in the industry and IAG is a lot higher than LH Group and around double those at AFKL (which is at c. 5-7%) but some of that relates to ancillaries more than flying which is the tough bit. You also have LCCs which operate on a different basis of margins (and load factors). These are mostly quoted/listed companies so there’s quite a lot of data available.

    You also have competitors that are state owned and/or directly/indirectly subsidised so such data as is available doesn’t tell you much and some are fairly consistently loss making.

• Andy says:

  26 Feb26 February 05:42

  I find it interesting that CNN is grouping Qantas’ changes with that of BA’s. Qantas is devaluing points not changing to revenue based and it’s the first devaluing in a while. As a QF member I’m irritated, but not anything like I would be if they pulled a BA.

  • QFFlyer says:

    26 Feb26 February 13:46

    Ditto, if QF retain their current system of earning status, I can suck up the deval, it’s the first since ~2019, as you say it’s been a while, so we were probably due one.

• Rupert Smith says:

  26 Feb26 February 12:41

  Aside from the obvious negative reaction to the various loyalty program changes, particularly BA’s. I am surprised that Airlines are allowed to act unilaterally like this if they are part of an alliance.

  Taking BA as an example, if people think ‘screw them’ and jump to airlines in an alternative alliance, this will have a negative impact on other airlines bookings.

  If I book flights out to the Far East using Qatar, and normally assign my BAEC number, Qatar is the one losing out if I drop Oneworld. As does me spending Avios in Qatars DF as they are always trying to get me to do. You could argue I build up Qatar Privilege Points via BA bookings but that still needs me to fly Qatar 4 times which would all be long haul.

  Likewise as I normally travel in Europe, I currently just look at bookings via ba.com. This will always show flight options via Iberia and Vueling. Unless I really want the pretty average experience of Iberia Business Class, I’m not flying IAG.

  Unless the alliances mean little to airlines I would be surprised if some of the bigger players in Oneworld have not been on the phone to BA already and said WTF?

  On a possibly related note. Has anyone else received the BAEC survey about its value and inviting ‘as much detail as possible’? Seems a bit late to bolt the stable door, but I guess the main exodus will actually be next April given the points boost we got to the membership year end changes.

  I don’t imagine BA will execute a U turn but they may already be seeing a drop in bookings given the amount of emails I have had recently for flights and ‘getaways’.

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