British Airways has the edge
11 May 2007. I've just parked my rented car at the Johannesburg Avis at OR Tambo International Airport (VW Jetta automatic...yay for upgrades courtesy of Avis), and made a beeline to the hotspot to put my thoughts to paper.
Small things count
In life I've so often seen little things escalate into big things that I'm starting to think that there's no such thing as little things. Why do I think British Airways have the edge over South African Airways in the full service economy class category? There's no one revolutionary idea which British Airways have had which South African Airways haven't, rather it's the accumulation of a number of a number of small things which are better polished and implemented.
Queues to check-in
It takes much longer to queue for check-in with SAA than BA. Now, I'm a silver class member of SAA so I don't even stand in the standard queues for their cattle-class. As I have no class (so as to speak!) with British Airways, I stand in their standard queues. Yet, the silver class queues for SAA are longer than the standard-class queues for BA.
Aircraft architecture
This is one of my favourite moans about South African Airways - the fact that the seats in the row in front of the emergency exits don't fold back on SAA planes, but do fold back for British Airways. I am completely serene in the knowledge that with my BA ticket, I wont have to spend a 2 hour flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town with a complete stranger's seat folded down onto my lap.
Marketing
South African Airways are streets behind British Airways as far as their marketing effort is concerned. British Airways has realised that airplane tickets are sold over the internet and have a superb internet marketing program, leveraging their sales with the power of affiliate marketing. As far as offline marketing goes, I've been contacted before by British Airways to match my voyager miles with their club miles, and give me the same status as South African Airways. Why is it that I have never been contacted by SAA with a similar offer?
All in all British Airways' approach is just that bit more polished and efficient, and that is why I rate them above South African Airways in terms of full service domestic airlines.
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