The Great British Airways Rip-off

pin

Yes, too right. This whole notion that BA-Virgin have the UK market stiched up not actually true. You can fly to North America with BA, Virgin, BMI, American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental, Air India, Air Canada, Northwest, US Air, Delta and the many charter airlines that are avaiable. Therefore just to North America there is the choice of 11 scheduled airlines.

medical

If you think going to canada is a rip off try going to Nigeria, Africa.

Flight takes 6 hours and my 2 children and i have to pay ---- wait for it---- £1590 with virgin and guess what Ba wanted to charge us £2300.
like it is not bad enough that south africa 12 hours away is so much cheaper than even the virgin quote

Martin and other moneysaving experts pls get your thinking cap out this rip off must stop

medical

Cardew

mystic_trev wrote:

I wish people would stop bloody moaning about BA - They're not a charity! Try using some common sense and shop around for the cheapest flights. I've used Ryanair and Easyjet over a dozen times in the last year, but I also used BA to fly to Croatia two weeks ago for £108 INC Taxes! Thre are plenty of cheap deals around, please use some common sense!

It is common sense to try to stop unfair trading practices that discriminate against the British public.

To do this it is necessary to publicise the facts and then public opinion, consumer groups, UK Government or the EEC might pressurise companies to stop such practices.

Similar pressure has to some extent opened up the new car market and prices in UK are now not substantially higher than Europe.

BA, structure their prices so that their British customers pay much more for long haul flights than their European customers. Other carriers take advantage of the lucrative market conditions in UK and structure their long haul prices in a similar manner. It is a cartel plain and simple.

BA, perhaps understandably, put the interest of their shareholders first and will not willingly do anything to jeopardise the excess profit margins obtained from UK and neither will the other carriers. They are fully aware that if they cut their prices other airlines would do the same.

Nevertheless the end result is that the British public are getting a raw deal and are perfectly justified in moaning about the situation.

WiseInvestor_2

student100 wrote:

Marketing reasons aside, you have to question the environmental soundness of this absurd pricing. It's no secret how much pollution etc. is caused by airliners flying all over the place

So why is there so much support for the low costs carriers, whose passengers wouldn't usually have made the trip except for the price? What are we doing to the environment and the UK economy with so many jetting off to Spain/Italy/Croatia etc when they would've otherwise spent their holiday (and money) in Blackpool/Bognor/Rhyl etc? But of course MSE loves the low costs, simply because they're cheap!

Competition between airlines is greater in London than anywhere else in the world, with 4 major airports within (guessing) an 80 mile radius. The airports themselves are owned and operated by independent companies - not the airlines, who aim to get as many flights (hence passengers) into and out of their shops every single day. The airport operators allocate take-off and landing slots to the airlines and charge them accordingly (BAA charge almost £9 per seat just for touching down on the runway at Heathrow! That's higher than any other European airport and would cost an airline £3000 just to land a 747). The Taxes/Fees/Charges you pay are on top of this cost!

The quandry for the airlines is that they have absolutely no control over how many slots are available each day or who uses them. If, for example, BA cancelled some flights on environmental grounds, their slots would immediately be snapped up by a competitor and market share would plummet.

Airlines are not big business. Richard Branson was asked during an interview how to become a millionnaire - he replied "begin as a multi-millionnaire then start an airline"

Cardew

pin wrote:

Yes, too right. This whole notion that BA-Virgin have the UK market stiched up not actually true. You can fly to North America with BA, Virgin, BMI, American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental, Air India, Air Canada, Northwest, US Air, Delta and the many charter airlines that are avaiable. Therefore just to North America there is the choice of 11 scheduled airlines.

You really are missing the point.

Of course you can fly direct to USA with a host of other scheduled airlines. However their prices are all inflated to the same level as BA & Virgin. They are not going to kill the golden goose. Of course they have stitched up the market.

You haven’t addressed the criticism we make that flights from a European city via London are substantially cheaper than flying from London.

student100

WiseInvestor wrote:

So why is there so much support for the low costs carriers, whose passengers wouldn't usually have made the trip except for the price? What are we doing to the environment and the UK economy with so many jetting off to Spain/Italy/Croatia etc when they would've otherwise spent their holiday (and money) in Blackpool/Bognor/Rhyl etc? But of course MSE loves the low costs, simply because they're cheap!

There is a net benefit (to the individual if not to the environment) to be gained by flying somewhere with Easyjet for a cheap 3 day weekend or whatever.

There is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to someone flying London-Amsterdam-London-Toronto just because it's cheaper than flying London-Toronto on the same transatlantic flight.

mystic_trev

medical wrote:

If you think going to canada is a rip off try going to Nigeria, Africa.

You can't expect cheap flights to Nigeria - lets face it the only people flying there are on business (oil industry) or families flying to see relatives. It's hardly likely to become a number one tourist destination - so is priced accordingly.

WiseInvestor_2

Sorry Cardew,

I thought we'd already established why it's cheaper to start your journey in another European country, because the airlines need to offer lower prices than the passenger's national airline (flying direct) to generate more business. European airlines do exactly the same thing in reverse.

medical wrote:

try going to Nigeria ... south africa 12 hours away is so much cheaper

Medical,

There's a lot more involved in ticket pricing than just the distance flown. Competition is a major factor and there are considerably more seats on offer to Johannesburg and Capetown than Lagos, not least because they're major tourist destinations. Aircraft utilisation is also important as some destination/departure times generate costly downtime where the aircraft cannot easily be sequenced into the rest of the flying programme. Regularity is also an issue as it's more economical to serve a route daily (or twice daily) than perhaps only a few times per week (crew costs, hotel costs etc). Security is a particular issue in Lagos which costs the airlines considerable amounts on money for extra passenger/baggage screening, armed aircraft guards, armed escorts during between the Terminal and the Runway etc.

You don't mention when you intend to travel, but I've just checked https://www.ba.com and 1 adult/2 children can travel on almost any day in June for £1443 return. Could there be a conference or some other event during your stay, pushing up demand and therefore prices?

WiseInvestor_2

student100 wrote:

There is a net benefit (to the individual if not to the environment) to be gained by flying somewhere with Easyjet for a cheap 3 day weekend or whatever

But that wasn't your argument; you suggested airlines are over-polluting the atmosphere by operating unecessary flights which is exactly what the low cost airlines are doing. Do you consider 99p flights a suitable trade-off between saving money and killing our planet?

student100

Low cost flights aren't "unnecessary". They are necessary if you want to enjoy a cheap weekend away... (whether that weekend away is necessary is the subject of a separate debate).

Extra flights to and from some European city just to save on your transatlantic flight fare are completely unnecessary.