The Great British Airways Rip-off

spookmeister

I cannot believe the balls of BA. I have no idea if this is a new thing or not but I get the impression BA are sticking two fingers up to the Great British public - and I for one won't be using them while they are screwing me over.

I want to travel from London to Toronto. I got a price for doing so £1,366.60 for 2 adults and a baby. Then I tried the option of flying from Amsterdam to Toronto with BA. The routing was Amsterdam to London - London to Toronto (and return). The full price for all flights is £300 cheaper departing from Amsterdam. Just to make sure it was a fair comparison I ensured that the connecting flight numbers were the same.

You can fly from almost every major city in europe to Toronto (via the same London flight) and it is still cheaper. Even Prague to Toronto is cheaper by £10 and that is some 600 miles in the opposite direction.

Before anyone says "It's probably cheaper Tax abroad" - in some cases you're right but it isn't anywhere near the excusable amount you'd think.

It's plain and simple - WE ARE BEING RIPPED-OFF!!!

Go and try it yourself at: https://www.ba.com

sleepy

My Dad found the same thing. He wanted to go to Japan, just him and my brother. It was £500 more expensive to fly from London than it was from Paris. The Paris flight was the same one, as it went Paris - London - Japan and had the same flight numbers. He even considered flying out to Paris to get the flight there, even though that returns to London before making it's way to Japan, as it would still save money!

royalsteve

spookmeister wrote:

I cannot believe the balls of BA. I have no idea if this is a new thing or not but I get the impression BA are sticking two fingers up to the Great British public - and I for one won't be using them while they are screwing me over.

I want to travel from London to Toronto. I got a price for doing so £1,366.60 for 2 adults and a baby. Then I tried the option of flying from Amsterdam to Toronto with BA. The routing was Amsterdam to London - London to Toronto (and return). The full price for all flights is £300 cheaper departing from Amsterdam. Just to make sure it was a fair comparison I ensured that the connecting flight numbers were the same.

You can fly from almost every major city in europe to Toronto (via the same London flight) and it is still cheaper. Even Prague to Toronto is cheaper by £10 and that is some 600 miles in the opposite direction.

Before anyone says "It's probably cheaper Tax abroad" - in some cases you're right but it isn't anywhere near the excusable amount you'd think.

It's plain and simple - WE ARE BEING RIPPED-OFF!!!

Go and try it yourself at: https://www.ba.com

Yep, they are crap and have rude/arogant staff

My boss and I were due to travel to Toulouse....he is an employee so his company pays for his ticket, whereas i am a contractor and would have to pay up front and then claim back....so cost isnt too much oif an issue

anyway....he booked his ticket via his New Zealand office for £138.00, but greedy BA wanted fleece me out of £642.00 for the SAME flights outbound/inbound!!!

Easyjet were £152.00 from the same airport.....guess who i travelled with.....

oh no i didnt get a crappy breakfast included or the one free drink.....

anyway the funny thing is my flight was delayed by 10 mins outbound and 30 mins inbound

my boss' ba flight was delayed 1 hour outbound and 15 mins inbound, he had to deal with rude staff too......his flight was near empty, mine was full....wonder why!!

saveapenny

http://www.canadianaffair.com/welcomeflash.htm
Only charter flights but they get rave reviews of fellow MSE's and the Thomas Cook flights are 35" seat pitch

la_contrabandier

they do it because they get way with it...unsuspecting travellers pay because they are unaware of different ways of reaching their destinations

its much the same with single fare rip-off prices, no doubt for every one traveller who uses different routes or pays for a return journey instead of a single there are another 20 who pay through the nose and are completely unaware they are being ripped off

the game BA play on prices is just about lying and cheating customers out of substantial amounts of money

more surprisingly on this moneysaving site, there are posters who can see no wrong in BA. and vastly inflated prices are quite allright (wise investor)

nowt as queer as folk

pin

Why is this such a rip off? All airlines do this. It will be, for example, more expensive to go to Toronto from Paris with Air France, than going London-Paris-Toronto with Air France. KLM, Luftansa, etc, they all do this.

We are not being ripped off, it is just market forces.

AndyMe

spookmeister wrote:

You can fly from almost every major city in europe to Toronto (via the same London flight) and it is still cheaper. Even Prague to Toronto is cheaper by £10 and that is some 600 miles in the opposite direction.

Before anyone says "It's probably cheaper Tax abroad" - in some cases you're right but it isn't anywhere near the excusable amount you'd think.

It's plain and simple - WE ARE BEING RIPPED-OFF!!!

Go and try it yourself at: https://www.ba.com

You are not being ripped off. The only reason it is cheaper to fly from a mainland European city to, for example, Toronto via London is to encourage travellers from those mainland European cities to use BA. Would you fly to Toronto with Air France via Paris if it were no cheaper than flying direct with BA from London? I very much doubt it. But if it were cheaper to fly via Paris you possibly would.

Bare in mind that in the example you use you also have to buy a flight to Amsterdam. You can't just turn up at London and expect to fly. This not only costs money but a lot of time. You don't, however, have to fly to Amsterdam on the return.

Now you know that you have the choice of a cheaper fair by flying via mainland Europe you can use it. BA do not try to hide this, but you can't expect them to advertise it.

WiseInvestor_2

AndyMe is quite correct - all airlines battle to poach eachother's passengers just to stay in business, which often involves under-cutting prices. This can only be a good thing for passengers as we can get some very good deals if we're prepared to shop around and possibly undergo a longer journey and some inconvenience. It also forces the airlines to focus on their products to differentiate the onboard experience.

This very situation hit the news headlines a few months ago when Alitalia attempted to take BA to court insisting their minimum fare charged for Rome-London-New York was at least equal to that charged by AZ for Rome-New York direct. Needless to say Alitalia lost the case as distorting prices was deemed to be anti-competitive and against the interest of consumers. Alitalia was (and still is) losing vast amounts of money and they deemed it easier to skew the market than address their internal cost structure.

BA's European operation is under constant threat from BA bosses as it's consistently loss-making, a major reason being because so many shorthaul connections are included free of charge just to entice passengers to book the more lucrative longhaul flights. None of this is hidden from us, the travelling public.

sleepy wrote:

It was £500 more expensive to fly from London than it was from Paris. The Paris flight was the same one, as it went Paris - London - Japan and had the same flight numbers

I'm more than a little confused by this! I'm assuming this was a BA journey as Air France aren't permitted to onload/offload passengers in London whilst en-route to another country (Virgin Atlantic could as they're a British airline but they don't operate to/from Paris). So whilst the flight numbers may've tied up to make connections simpler, this routing would require a change of aircraft in London (as BA don't send many 747s to Paris and their smaller A319s certainly wouldn't reach Tokyo!). So in order to save money, your dad and brother would've had to route

-London-Paris
-get off
-check-in for the next London-bound flight
-get on
-fly back to London
-transfer from either Heathrow Terminal 4 or Gatwick(!) to Heathrow T1
-board their flight to Japan.

Like I said above, whilst it may be cheaper it's somewhat inconvenient.

la_contrabandier wrote:

its much the same with single fare rip-off prices ...

the game BA play on prices is just about lying and cheating customers out of substantial amounts of money ...

more surprisingly on this moneysaving site, there are posters who can see no wrong in BA. and vastly inflated prices are quite allright (wise investor)

I see very little correlation between single fares and international routings, but clearly you're not happy with British Airways. As always, there are two sides to every argument and your gripes are no exception!

Baz-Bee

AndyMe wrote:

You are not being ripped off. The only reason it is cheaper to fly from a mainland European city to, for example, Toronto via London is to encourage travellers from those mainland European cities to use BA. Would you fly to Toronto with Air France via Paris if it were no cheaper than flying direct with BA from London? I very much doubt it. But if it were cheaper to fly via Paris you possibly would.

Bare in mind that in the example you use you also have to buy a flight to Amsterdam. You can't just turn up at London and expect to fly. This not only costs money but a lot of time. You don't, however, have to fly to Amsterdam on the return.

Now you know that you have the choice of a cheaper fair by flying via mainland Europe you can use it. BA do not try to hide this, but you can't expect them to advertise it.

Well if Air France concentrated on attracting the passengers in France that BA are staeling from them and vice versa we could all enjoy more competitively priced flights with less inconvenience. But I suppose that is too simple?

Additionally, all the extra connected flights could be scrapped, cutting operating costs even further and resulting in more savings to be passed to the customer. If someone argues that the connecting flights would be operated as a scheduled service anyway, then the comment regarding their costs would be negated.

The bottom line is that BA see's the UK as a cash cow and until they adopt the principal that the customer wants cheap affordable fares, they will continue to attract less passengers than they otherwsie might.

WiseInvestor_2

Baz-Bee wrote:

Well if Air France concentrated on attracting the passengers in France that BA are staeling from them and vice versa we could all enjoy more competitively priced flights with less inconvenience. But I suppose that is too simple?

With the UK being one of Europe's smallest countries, the UK population would be insufficient to keep the plethora of UK airlines in business (there are more airlines based in the UK than any other European country). BA/Virgin/bmi etc have to market themselves elsewhere in order to compete and Europe is a big market. Interestingly, over 50% of BA's passengers are non-UK citizens!

Most countries (and their National airlines) benefit from government protection both in terms of financial assistance (eg. Alitalia, Olympic etc) and travel restrictions (eg. US State Department/Government employees are only permitted to use US airlines). And then there's the patriotism seen elsewhere other than the UK - the Italians buy Fiat/Alfa/Parmalat, the French buy Citroen/Peugot etc and their preferred choice is also their National airline. Why do you think the US airlines are still suffering from the fallout of 9/11 once Americans stopped flying? Offering lower fares is the only way UK airlines can possibly hope to attract customers from elsewhere.

Baz-Bee wrote:

all the extra connected flights could be scrapped, cutting operating costs even further and resulting in more savings to be passed to the customer

Interesting solution and one that I'm sure BA bosses have considered countless times over recent years. Ask yourself however, why easyJet/Ryanair etc offer the fares they do? Answer: because they have to in order to establish their market and grow their businesses. What do you think would happen to low cost fares if BA stopped European services?!

Baz-Bee wrote:

The bottom line is that BA see's the UK as a cash cow and until they adopt the principal that the customer wants cheap affordable fares, they will continue to attract less passengers than they otherwsie might.

As I've already pointed out, over half of BA's passengers aren't from the UK so their reliance on their home market is limited. They are also one of few airlines still operating First and Business Class services across the World (Virgin's Upper Class is a halfway house, Lufthansa have ripped their First Class product out of many of their longhaul aeroplanes). Also, BA's attempt to match Virgin by offering a Premium Economy product has seen uncharted success - so are you sure "cheap affordable" is all the customer wants?

I don't dispute that BA may not be the cheapest airline (although often they are) but I just can't understand the UK's hatred of big corporates. Does anyone else here drive a Rover? I do.

AndyMe

Baz-Bee wrote:

Well if Air France concentrated on attracting the passengers in France that BA are staeling from them and vice versa we could all enjoy more competitively priced flights with less inconvenience. But I suppose that is too simple?

Additionally, all the extra connected flights could be scrapped, cutting operating costs even further and resulting in more savings to be passed to the customer. If someone argues that the connecting flights would be operated as a scheduled service anyway, then the comment regarding their costs would be negated.

The bottom line is that BA see's the UK as a cash cow and until they adopt the principal that the customer wants cheap affordable fares, they will continue to attract less passengers than they otherwsie might.

An interesting concept! BA only carries UK citizens, Air France only carries French, Lufthansa only carries German etc etc. The prices from any European city to the same destination will be fixed by all of the carriers. Do you think that if this happened the fixed price would be lower or higher than the prices are now?