BA half the price of competitors

British Airways has reminded travel agents that its January Club World fares to London and the US are half the price of its competitors and should be promoted to corporates who are being forced to tighten their belts during the current credit crisis.

“The message to the trade is that you can deliver fantastic savings to your corporate clients during this downturn when they are being forced to cutback,” BA commercial director Middle East Paul Starrs told Arabian Travel News.

“Our fares are half the price of our direct competition on these routes.”

Return fares from Dubai to London in Club World (BA’s business class cabin) from January 1 are priced at AED 6550 including taxes, fees and surcharges if bookings are made by the end of November.

The offer, which marks BA’s introduction of a fourth daily service, five days a week on its Dubai-Heathrow route from January 2, also extends to the airline’s North American routes.

Return fares to New York start from AED 11,550, Chicago for AED 11,850 and Los Angeles for only AED 13,850.

“We are adding a fourth daily Dubai – London flight, five days a week, from January due to the popularity of our existing three daily services,” said Starrs.

“In a year in which commercial aviation has probably faced the harshest trading environment in history, we have nearly doubled our Dubai-London services in the last two months alone – I think that speaks volumes about how important the Dubai and wider Middle East market is to British Airways.”

Starrs also reiterated the message that BA’s Terminal 5 at London Heathrow is definitely open for business.

The facility received negative press when it first opened earlier this year, but is now operating more than 90% of its services, including Middle East routes, to and from the terminal and there are “no operational problems whatsoever”, according to Starrs.

He was speaking after recently conducting a Middle East tour during which he visited agencies in Kuwait, Doha and Bahrain, to remind them that T5 was up and running and working smoothly.

“I was surprised just how many agents thought there were still problems at T5,” said Starrs. “But it is working 100 percent.”

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