Strike of British Airways Cabin Crew Has Begun, Thousands Of Passengers Stranded
British Airways cabin crew have started a three-day strike that is set cause severe disruption for thousands of passengers.
The BBC’s Chris Rogers was on a BA flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam on Saturday morning.
Terminal 5 was teeming with stewards acting as guides for thousands of BA staff who have volunteered to replace striking cabin crew, the stewards were there to guide them though their first day on the job.
The airline has assured passengers the volunteers have been fully trained for the job.
I was a passenger on one of just a few scheduled flights with BA cabin crew who did turn up for work.
The three-man team told me they decided to cross the picket line and were allocated on the flight to Amsterdam.
One worker – who didn’t wished to be named – said he may regret it “but he and other colleagues were thinking about the long term effects the strike would have on the company”.
Rare experience
BA has told its staff it may have to withdraw company perks such as discounted tickets for workers, family and friends, and the airline has not ruled out redundancy to recoup its losses from strike action.
The majority of passengers found themselves flying on BA planes operated by relatively unknown European airlines such as Jet 2 or Viking which provide their own cabin crew.
So far so good for a majority of passengers at Terminal 5 but with 1,100 BA flights cancelled over the next three days, my experience will be a rare one.
The word cancelled is already appearing on the flight information boards leaving some travellers at a loss, but the expected scenes of travel chaos may have been averted with many passengers opting to take earlier flights or switching airlines.
‘Direct ticket’
Some budget carriers have offered discount tickets to victims of the BA strike.
The airline has brought in extra ground staff to help stranded passengers get to their destination, even if that means switching them to a rival airline.
Frances Pardoe’s connecting flight to Canada was cancelled.
“They simply handed me a direct ticket with Air Canada, I was amazed,” she told me.
“They must be losing so much business but it seems they are putting passengers before profit.”
BA stands to lose £30m a day over the strike period and have warned of a knock on effect in the coming days.
Domestic Airlines Discount Airfares Fall to 17-year Low
Discount domestic airfares have hit their lowest level since 1992, according to a new survey that shows the cheapest fares are nearly 30 per cent lower than a year ago.
The 17-year low, revealed in figures for January from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, is further evidence that bargain-hunting travellers are benefiting from airline moves to offset weaker demand by filling planes.
Full economy airfares nose-dived, falling by 21.6 per cent compared with January last year, but this mainly reflects the impact on the index caused by the addition of Virgin Corporate Plus fares last February.
However, the sharp falls were not seen in all fare types.
Business class fares in January were less than 1 per cent lower than in the previous year, while restricted economy fares fell by only 2.6 per cent.
The BITRE Domestic Air Fare Index does not give actual fares but expresses them as an index. Although the bureau changed the way it collected data in 2003, the best discount index of 56.1 for January is almost half the figure recorded in January 1993, and shows how increased competition between airlines in the past decade has brought down fares.
Low-end domestic travellers are benefiting from moves to scrap fuel surcharges and from fare sales as carriers enter the traditionally quiet travel period from February to April.
While the fares are conditional, often do not include checked baggage and tend to be availablemainly in off-peak periods, they represent good value for people who can be flexible with their travel.
Examples include a Tiger Airways sale last week that offered thousands of seats across its network at half-price for travelbetween next month and October. The sale had one-way fares available from $17.49 plus a$5 credit card booking fee.
Virgin is advertising a 25 per cent discount on Sydney-Canberra flights that reduces the cheapest fare on the route from $79 — before the decision to axe the fuel surcharge — to $39.
Jetstar is promoting one-way fares from $39 (Brisbane-Newcastle) as well as several $49 and $59 specials for people who have only carry-on baggage.
Melbourne friends Kirsten Shelly, Debra McCarthy and Kate Burridge took advantage of the cheap fares to travel to Sydney and back this weekend.
Ms Shelly and Ms Burridge managed to buy their flights back to Melbourne on Virgin Blue’s website for $112.
For a peak Sunday flight it was a good price,” Ms Burridge said.
The deteriorating commercial conditions have prompted at least one financial analyst to downgrade his pre-tax profit forecast for Qantas to a figure below the airline’s guidance of $500million.
JPMorgan analyst Matt Crowe last week predicted a
pre-tax profit of $483million, with net profit falling from $970million last financial year to $348 million this year.
Mr Crowe said conditions had continued to deteriorate for airlines in the past month, and he was doubtful that fare cuts would have the stimulatory impact on demand that airlines hoped.
The domestic deals come as carriers are also cutting fares on international routes, with Etihad last week announcing return economy fares to Europe for less than $2000 for travel to June, as well as for dates in September and October.
The US route has become particularly competitive, with airlines offering return economy fares below $1200 for Travel between Sydney and the US west coast.
New entrants V Australia and Delta Air Lines will double the number of carriers flying non-stop to the US west coast.
V Australia, due to launch on February 27, triggered the fare-slashing contest on the US route by offering $1199 all-inclusive return fares.
Low-cost carriers Tiger Airways and AirAsiaX continue to provide low-cost international alternatives to the full-service carriers, with Tiger offering a $206.95 one-way Melbourne-Singapore fare and AirAsiaX a $199 one-way ticket to Kuala Lumpur from its Australian ports.
Holiday air travel looks sluggish this year
A mid-year update to the national Airline Quality Rating report predicts poor conditions for holiday travel this year.
The report, a comprehensive study of the performance and quality of the country’s top 17 airlines, projects a continuance of the industry’s five-year decline in performance.
The numbers worsen drastically between Thanksgiving and the end of the year, making December the worst month for travel.
“It’s been an overall decline for more than five years when you look at is as a whole, and specifically the holiday season,” said Brent Bowen, aviation science chair at Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology at St. Louis University. Bowen also said that the Airline Quality Rating’s numbers from the earlier months this year show an improvement over the worst-ever results in 2007, and if that continues, the holiday season could be better than expected.
“However, since we have several positive things happening, like that performance has shown positive improvement so far this year, and airline revenues are up because of fees and fuel prices are down, they may have the funding that could be invested in improving performance this holiday season,” he said. “It is either going to be a window of opportunity, or an opportunity lost. Do airline companies invest in making the year and this holiday season positive, or do they miss that opportunity? Not only are they risking the holiday season– they are risking the whole year.”
The study found that many of the best-performing airlines are low-cost companies like Jet Blue Airlines and Southwest Airlines Co. lead the industry in performance. “As a group they have over-performed the established legacy carriers for the last several years,” Bowen says. “It’s representative that they run a tighter, leaner operation, and that carries all the way down the chain to baggage handling and translates to fewer customer complaints.”
Across all categories the top-performing airlines were Hawaiian Airlines, Jet Blue Airways, AirTran Airways and Southwest Airlines Co.
The next annual report will be released in April 2009.
AirTran Airways Adds Nonstop Flight Service From Baltimore to San Juan
AirTran Airways is stepping up its Caribbean service out of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, increasing nonstop service to San Juan, Puerto Rico to two daily flights.
AirTran, which agreed this week to be acquired by Southwest Airlines Co., currently offers weekend-only nonstop flights from BWI to San Juan, with one flight on Saturday and one on Sunday.
Effective April 5, AirTran will begin operating a morning flight and an evening flight from BWI to San Juan seven days a week.
American Airlines also currently flies from BWI to San Juan.
AirTran currently offers five flights per week from BWI to Cancun.
The expanded service was announced as part of a broader expansion of AirTran routes between other cities, including Orlando, Tampa, Milwaukee, Phoenix and Akron, Ohio.
Orlando, Fla.-based AirTran is BWI’s second-largest carrier, with 3.3 million passengers last year. Dallas-based Southwest is the largest carrier at BWI, accounting for 10.9 million passengers in 2009, or 52 percent of the airport’s total.
Southwest intends to acquire AirTran for $1.4 billion. Paul Wiedefeld, Maryland’s top aviation official, said BWI could gain more international flights from the merger.
Global Airline Industry Expectations in 2010 : Aviation Firms Shares Rose Sharply
Airline stocks have been flying high in 2010 thanks to renewed hopes over an economic recovery, an uptick in business travel, and a stronger dollar. The Claymore/NYSE Arca Airline ETF (FAA) has shot higher on the news, gaining nearly 5% on the week and 15% so far on the year. A slight pullback in oil prices–one of the primary negative factors weighing on the airline industry–has also added momentum to FAA in recent sessions. Ongoing concerns over the financial health of Europe have boosted the greenback, which generally moves in the opposite direction of oil.
Alliance consolidation should also further help to boost revenues, as the world’s biggest airline, Delta Air Lines, looks for a new partner to assist in the expansion of international travel destinations. Not to be outdone, several of Delta’s chief rivals are also looking to strengthen international operations. “American Airlines, British Airways, and Iberia have taken significant steps toward allaying antitrust regulators’ concerns over their proposed alliance, offering a number of gates at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports to competitors,” writes Christopher Hinton. These developments could help many airlines open up more international routes, which could translate into increased profits. For many carriers, business and international are the most profitable operations.
Wall Street banks are beginning to take note of the improved outlook for the industry. UBS recently raised its target price on several carriers and Jesup & Lamont Securities forecast a smaller first-quarter loss for Delta. In further good news for Delta, the company raised its operating profit margin forecast for this quarter from 1% to 2% of sales, up from an estimate at the end of January of “break-even.” However, the best sign for investors in Delta was the large uptick in business travelers; ticket volume was up 34% in February compared to last year, producing a 32% rise in corporate travel revenue according to Barron’s.
