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flying with and making sure that the operator will
be around at the end of their holiday. We are
getting some benefits from that,” he said.
“We have clearly seen a boost from Canada,
Latin American and the Caribbean, and that
relates in part to the collapse of Zoom and XL
Leisure Group’s withdrawal from the Caribbean.”
BA had picked up at least 4,000 tickets from
Zoom’s collapse, he added.
Daniels saw XL’s collapse as the result of a
market where recent falls in oil prices have been
cancelled out by the pound’s slide against the
dollar, leaving the fuel problem just as acute.
BA is in “a good place” compared with its
competitors, he says, and will continue to
benefit as customers pick an airline they are sure
will not be going bust. The carrier will not be
marketing itself in that way, but it was keen
to be seen to be among the first to be bringing
people home in the Zoom and XL collapses to
emphasise its position as a reliable flag-carrier.
“I’m trying to get
BA back into the
mindset of a leisure
airline. We needed to
do some work on it”
The misfortune of other carriers has helped
BA’s autumn sale, which Daniels said was between
5% to 10% up in volume and revenue on last year.
Bookings for all cabin types were up, but the
best performer was the premium economy World
Traveller Plus, which was 20% higher than 2007,
driven partly by Africa and Middle East offers.
But BA will not be dropping prices to the
Middle East to compete with a recent 20% cut by
Emirates (TTG September 19).
“We need to look at what we want to do first.
We need to think about who our customer is.
“We won’t be putting major price decreases in
the market. We believed fares needed to rise and
have increased them over the last six months.
“It’s necessary to act rationally to respond to
the costs that we are seeing but we need also to
take into account the economic conditions and
changes in customer demand.”
Caribbean sales are up at British Airways, which Daniels says reflects its efforts to market its leisure routes more to agents
Mending fences
Daniels has been in his job now for more than But he refutes strongly some agents’ claims see BA as a leisure as well as business airline and
two years, and he took over at a time when that BA now puts the bottom line above its to develop sales on leisure routes such as the
agents were furious about BA’s move to zero service to agents and customers. Caribbean and Florida.
commission. He argues any business that did not focus “I’m trying to get BA back into the mindset
His role, he says, has been to “mend fences” on its bottom line in the current climate would of a leisure airline. We needed to do some work
and he believes most have been mended, fail, and BA had invested in customer service on it. The Caribbean is now a very profitable bit
although he accepts there is still “a segment” with an array of training programmes for staff. of the network. It was not two years ago, but it is
smarting over the commission move. Daniels’ job now, he says, is to get the trade to now.”
03.10.2008 35
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