Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:59:45 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Given the huge play BA make about being the UK's favourite airline
they're not going to step out of line.

Actually, it's many years (even decades?) since BA claimed to be the
world's favourite airline. I can't remember what spurious statistic
they based it on, but they wouldn't be number one using it today. I
think Ryanair sometimes claims to be the UK's favourite airline these
days.

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 22:06:00 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:35:35 +0100, Recliner
wrote:

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:59:45 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Given the huge play BA make about being the UK's favourite airline
they're not going to step out of line.

Actually, it's many years (even decades?) since BA claimed to be the
world's favourite airline. I can't remember what spurious statistic
they based it on, but they wouldn't be number one using it today. I
think Ryanair sometimes claims to be the UK's favourite airline these
days.

Well OK I've just got the old slogan lodged in my brain. However it's
clear that BA certainly see themselves as British. The livery is red,
white and blue, the flag is on the tail and the "to fly, to serve"
campaign is steeped in the history of UK aviation and that "stiff
upper lip" British approach to customer service.

Ryanair is Irish and is just a crap airline version of Megabus and I
apologise to Mr Souter for sullying his coach service!

Yes, BA seems to be more keen these days to emphasise its Britishness
-- it played it down during the brief world-tails era. That's when
Virgin added the union flag to its livery so it could claim to be the
British flag carrier. Both BA and the now-defunct bmi now use subtle,
stylised versions of the flag, whereas in some of Virgin's many livery
variants, it's less-than-subtle (eg,
http://www.airplane-pictures.net/pho...eing-747-400/).

Of course, since its merger with Iberia, BA probably has a lower
percentage of British ownership than ever before in its history.

As for Ryanair vs Megabus, at least Megabus doesn't load you up with
numerous extra near-impossible-to-avoid add-on costs.

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

In message , at 21:35:35 on
Tue, 19 Jun 2012, Recliner remarked:
Given the huge play BA make about being the UK's favourite airline
they're not going to step out of line.

Actually, it's many years (even decades?) since BA claimed to be the
world's favourite airline. I can't remember what spurious statistic
they based it on, but they wouldn't be number one using it today.

The claim was based upon:

"Favourite" - having the highest number of...
"World's" - passengers on International routes.

All the other big airlines being of a more domestic-passenger variety.

On that basis Waterloo is the commuter's favourite Underground station.
--
Roland Perry

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

On 19/06/2012 17:42, Mizter T wrote:

On 19/06/2012 15:59, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:21:31 +0100, Roland
wrote:

In , at 14:10:27 on
Tue, 19 Jun 2012, Graham Harrison
remarked:
Why not have a look at the advert for yourself and make your own mind
up: http://www.youtube.com/user/flybritishairways

The first part seems to be making a connection between BA and London,
for foreigners. Then it ends with the "Don't Fly" message which can only
be aimed at Brits.

Very odd.

I think the video is excellent and I don't normally say that about BA
adverts. The concept is surely about "Britishness" and just asking
Brits to patriotically support the GB Olympics team. And of course
BA want millions of visitors to fly with them to the UK! Seems simple
enough to me.

Can you imagine the faux furore there would be if BA launched a
campaign to persuade Brits to bugger off from the UK when the Games
are on? It would be the modern day equivalent of Maggie putting her
hankie over the model jet with the "arty" tail design that BA had on
their planes for a number of years. The Sun, Mail and Telegraph would
be screeching on for weeks about it.

Given the huge play BA make about being the UK's favourite airline
they're not going to step out of line.

Quite agree with your thoughts. 'Stay in Blighty, support Team GB, enjoy
the Olympics in the host country, your country'.

Although it surprises me that Watney Market gets a look in (about 42
seconds in to the version where you haven't put your postcode in)!

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 07:35:12 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 21:35:35 on
Tue, 19 Jun 2012, Recliner remarked:
Given the huge play BA make about being the UK's favourite airline
they're not going to step out of line.

Actually, it's many years (even decades?) since BA claimed to be the
world's favourite airline. I can't remember what spurious statistic
they based it on, but they wouldn't be number one using it today.

The claim was based upon:

"Favourite" - having the highest number of...
"World's" - passengers on International routes.

All the other big airlines being of a more domestic-passenger variety.

I wonder if Emirates would now qualify on that basis?

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

In message , at 10:07:25 on
Wed, 20 Jun 2012, Recliner remarked:
Given the huge play BA make about being the UK's favourite airline
they're not going to step out of line.

Actually, it's many years (even decades?) since BA claimed to be the
world's favourite airline. I can't remember what spurious statistic
they based it on, but they wouldn't be number one using it today.

The claim was based upon:

"Favourite" - having the highest number of...
"World's" - passengers on International routes.

All the other big airlines being of a more domestic-passenger variety.

I wonder if Emirates would now qualify on that basis?

I wondered the same thing, but didn't look it up. But now...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%2...heduled_intern
ational_passenger-kilometers_flown

Yes, Emirates wins (over Lufthansa) by quite a margin. Although AF-KLM
would win if you combined their numbers (which I think perhaps we
should). BA languishing at fifth.

On this metric. It's possible you'd get a different answer if you
measured international-customer-legs [no, not their inside legs - ed]
instead. At which point Ryanair would seemingly claim the crown.
--
Roland Perry

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 11:33:50 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 10:07:25 on
Wed, 20 Jun 2012, Recliner remarked:
Given the huge play BA make about being the UK's favourite airline
they're not going to step out of line.

Actually, it's many years (even decades?) since BA claimed to be the
world's favourite airline. I can't remember what spurious statistic
they based it on, but they wouldn't be number one using it today.

The claim was based upon:

"Favourite" - having the highest number of...
"World's" - passengers on International routes.

All the other big airlines being of a more domestic-passenger variety.

I wonder if Emirates would now qualify on that basis?

I wondered the same thing, but didn't look it up. But now...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%2...heduled_intern
ational_passenger-kilometers_flown

Yes, Emirates wins (over Lufthansa) by quite a margin. Although AF-KLM
would win if you combined their numbers (which I think perhaps we
should). BA languishing at fifth.

On this metric. It's possible you'd get a different answer if you
measured international-customer-legs [no, not their inside legs - ed]
instead. At which point Ryanair would seemingly claim the crown.

It's an interesting table. If you look at all the merged airlines, I
suspect the rankings would change.
Lufthansa+Swiss+Austrian+Brussels+Eurowings (etc) would almost
certainly beat Emirates, and AF+KLM might well be bigger still. I
wonder what Iberia and bmi were? Possibly, including them, IAG would
also beat Emirates, but would still not be top. I'm also surprised how
low Singapore Airlines comes. It pioneered the city state hub business
model that Emirates now uses, but has been comprehensively overtaken.

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

In message , at 11:59:50 on
Wed, 20 Jun 2012, Recliner remarked:
It's an interesting table. If you look at all the merged airlines, I
suspect the rankings would change.

Lufthansa+Swiss+Austrian+Brussels+Eurowings (etc) would almost
certainly beat Emirates, and AF+KLM might well be bigger still. I
wonder what Iberia and bmi were?

Both presumably below 73k, or they'd be in the table. BMI's routes were
mainly Europe and Middle East, which are short on miles, and they tended
to use smaller planes (and codeshare with partners reduces BMI's metal's
mileage too).

I'm also surprised how
low Singapore Airlines comes. It pioneered the city state hub business
model that Emirates now uses, but has been comprehensively overtaken.

I thought that was Cathay Pacific (city hub in Hong Kong), bicbw.
--
Roland Perry

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 11:59:50 on
Wed, 20 Jun 2012, Recliner remarked:
It's an interesting table. If you look at all the merged airlines, I
suspect the rankings would change.

Lufthansa+Swiss+Austrian+Brussels+Eurowings (etc) would almost
certainly beat Emirates, and AF+KLM might well be bigger still. I
wonder what Iberia and bmi were?

Both presumably below 73k, or they'd be in the table. BMI's routes were
mainly Europe and Middle East, which are short on miles, and they tended
to use smaller planes (and codeshare with partners reduces BMI's metal's
mileage too).

I'm also surprised how
low Singapore Airlines comes. It pioneered the city state hub business
model that Emirates now uses, but has been comprehensively overtaken.

I thought that was Cathay Pacific (city hub in Hong Kong), bicbw.
--
Roland Perry

I think it depends on your definition of a hub. CX have been around longer
than SQ and have always operated out of HKG. However, the extent to which
they ran their network so that people could fly to HKG and out again to
their destination even when they started operating Electras and later 880s
is perhaps questionable. There's no doubt it happened but for many years I
suspect it was a happy coincidence rather than a planned operation.
Remember that on many routes they probably only operated once a day and that
they were restricted to operating within East Asia for many years so that
BOAC was protected against competition.

What SQ became known for was bringing flights in from Europe to SIN,
shuffling the passengers and sending them on to Australasia. My memory
suggests they were doing that before CX was able to break out of its' East
Asian home and start operating intercontinentally.

Don't fly BA during the Olympics
 

In message , at 15:01:10 on
Wed, 20 Jun 2012, Graham Harrison
remarked:
I'm also surprised how
low Singapore Airlines comes. It pioneered the city state hub business
model that Emirates now uses, but has been comprehensively overtaken.

I thought that was Cathay Pacific (city hub in Hong Kong), bicbw.
-- Roland Perry

I think it depends on your definition of a hub. CX have been around
longer than SQ and have always operated out of HKG. However, the
extent to which they ran their network so that people could fly to HKG
and out again to their destination even when they started operating
Electras and later 880s is perhaps questionable. There's no doubt it
happened but for many years I suspect it was a happy coincidence rather
than a planned operation. Remember that on many routes they probably
only operated once a day and that they were restricted to operating
within East Asia for many years so that BOAC was protected against competition.

My very first International flight (in approx 1983) was Cathay Pacific
to Hong Kong with a connection to Osaka. Going out, the flight from the
UK was non-stop to HK, but coming back we had a refuelling stop
somewhere. I completely forget where, but in retrospect it was probably
Bahrain.

Our company favoured CP at the time because, iirc, their business class
had a checked baggage allowance of "N Pieces", completely irrespective
of how big or heavy it was. People were literally sending cabin trunks
back and forth.

What SQ became known for was bringing flights in from Europe to SIN,
shuffling the passengers and sending them on to Australasia. My
memory suggests they were doing that before CX was able to break out of
its' East Asian home and start operating intercontinentally.

So what year did you have in mind for that?
--
Roland Perry