BA ‘narrows service gap with rivals’
05.07.08
British Airways has overcome the chaotic opening of its showpiece Heathrow Terminal 5 and significantly improved the punctuality of its services during the last two months, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper says that, although it is still lagging behind its main European rivals, it is gradually narrowing its performance gap with competing airlines including Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and Iberia.
Last year BA had the worst performance among leading European airlines for both flight delays and misplaced baggage. It slumped to a new low at the end of March with the disastrous opening of T5, when more than 500 flights were cancelled and more than 20,000 bags were misplaced.
However, Willie Walsh, BA chief executive, said on Friday: ‘Our punctuality and baggage performance levels are significantly improved on this time last year and check-in queues are much reduced.’
The FT reports that, since late April, BA has consistently been exceeding its own weekly targets for punctuality, 'marking a huge advance from its very poor performance in recent years, when it regularly missed the targets by a wide margin.'
On the basis of the aviation industry standard – flights departing within 15 minutes of the scheduled time – 75% of BA flights left ‘on time’ in May compared with 69%in the same month a year ago.
In June 72% of flights left within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, up from only 55% a year earlier. The June performance would have been better but for the disruption to schedules over four days caused by the visit to London by George Bush, the US president, which forced BA to cancel 53 flights and led to more than 260 flights being delayed by at least 30 minutes.
The airline set a target for a share of 71% of on-time departures in May and June, but the target is likely to be raised to above 80% from this month, as service standards improve, in particular at T5.
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