Economy fliers everywhere, rejoice! After a long stint of what can only be described as tight-fisted meanness, British Airways and other short-haul carriers including Virgin Atlantic have started to compete on service again. The trolley-dolly is officially back. Now, once you are (semi) comfortably seated in economy and cruising at altitude, you will be offered tea or coffee and maybe even a biscuit. Airlines have long competed in a race to the bottom on price but are undergoing something of a volte face. This new customer service strategy is driven by competition from the state-subsidised airlines in Asia and the Gulf. This can only be good news for those of us who fly economy but believe that we belong in another part of the plane. I include myself in this number.
No-frills flying, led by Ryanair and easyJet, was the aviation industry’s modus operandi for well over a decade in a bid to drive ticket prices down to the lowest possible level. In increasingly farcical turns, one would book a ticket to a short-haul destination only to find that you hadn’t actually paid the full amount at all. What were erroneously termed ‘add ons’ – choice of seat, boarding, luggage, handbag options – then cascaded into various bossy and alarming click-through windows, some with timers reminding you that your seat may disappear unless you act immediately. In short, a ransom. In sweaty-palmed panic, one would then purchase all the extras in what amounted to a pillage of one’s credit card and, more importantly, a destruction of the once exalted contract between airline and customer.
Flying used to be great fun, and it will be again. I missed its golden age, romanticised brilliantly in films like Catch Me If You Can and the Pan Am series, but I am old enough to remember the excitement of the airport and the feeling that something extraordinary and luxurious was about to take place. Back in the early 1990s I also regarded British Airways with great reverence, having always been told by my father (who had clearly done his research) that it had ‘the prettiest hostesses and the best champagne’. Here was our national airline, newly spangled and privatised under Lord King and Colin Marshall in what was regarded as the most successful of the Thatcher-era privatisations. British Airways really was the ‘world’s favourite airline’, with its share offer in February 1987 almost ten times oversubscribed. This wasn’t to last. Soon, British Airways, under the brutal and cost-cutting leadership of Willie Walsh, became the laughing stock of British aviation and the butt of customer jokes: ‘We’ll get you from London to London in ten hours’ or as easyJet put it, ‘to fly, to save’ in a parody of BA’s smug adage ‘to fly, to serve’.
And while the fortunes of an airline are not necessarily connected to the trolley service – see Ryanair which posted a €1.6 billion profit for the financial year 2024-25 despite not giving two hoots about its customers – I do believe that in the long-term economy plus trolley equals true love. Friends who have flown Emirates say that even in bog-standard economy you are still entitled to a slap-up dinner and a few drinks. The middle-market is what airlines should aim for.
Airlines, having competed for so long in a so-called ‘race to the bottom’ on price, are undergoing something of a volte-face on customer service
I have only flown business once, when I was heavily pregnant, and the Air France check-in representative took pity on me in a Gallic and withering way: ‘Madame est enceinte,’ she shouted. For the rest of my flying life, particularly with children in tow, I will be flying economy, or ‘coach’ as the Americans so elegantly put it. But that doesn’t mean that I want to be jammed into a cattle-truck, starved to death and forced to beg the British Airways staff for a ludicrously small bottle of water as I wrestle with my crying child. No, rather like I do at the supermarket, I want something a bit nicer but not too nice: a Tesco Finest lasagne, let’s say. Given that I am no longer a penniless student, it would be nice, too, if the flight could be slightly more in keeping with the rest of the holiday (not wholly extravagant but not dossing down in a hostel either) rather than a necessary evil to be endured.
According to research published by McKinsey, airline profits are booming, turning around the $30 billion collective loss they posted in Covid into a profit for the most recent financial year. The International Airlines Group led by BA is now achieving some £2.3 billion in post-tax profits. Airlines are back on, business is booming and I can’t wait. Gone is the unfortunate memory of having such a vicious argument with an easyJet employee – over a suitcase – that I was almost barred from the flight. Put your tray table down, your handbag under your seat and wait for that gourmet sandwich. You’ve paid for it, after all.
Comments