British Airways launched a new plan on 1 April, which has introduced business class on domestic flights. The airline will deliberately keep some seats empty on domestic flights between London and Northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The move will reduce the number of tickets sold from Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Leeds/Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle to London. Every business-class passenger is now assured of getting a window or aisle seat and more personal space. This will enhance comfort while flying BA considering the middle seats in front of the plane will be left unfilled.
What is usually a row of six seats from Gatwick to Heathrow in Club class now has a maximum of four passengers, as the middle seat on each side will be left unsold. A BA domestic flight on an Airbus A320 will have 20 empty seats, allowing 10 rows of business class, a typical flight capacity. Sunday alone saw two late afternoon flights from Heathrow to Edinburgh get sold out, with the next flight selling at £320, with extras such as tea, coffee or champagne.
A BA spokesman said: "We're delighted to be launching our short-haul business class cabin, Club Europe, on our UK domestic flights. The introduction of the cabin enables us to offer to UK domestic customers the use of our spacious lounges, with complimentary catering, priority boarding and disembarkation, more generous baggage allowances, extra Avios and frequent flyer points plus excellent free onboard food and drink."The airline insists the decision is not in any way related to their January move to remove complimentary catering from economy passengers on short-haul flights in Europe.
Whether or not this latest move will increase BA’s revenue remains to be seen. Editor in Chief of Business Travel NewsMalcolm Ginsberg said: “British Airways is engaged in a fine balancing act. “Will the reduced number of seats be reflected by the increased revenue that the business-class passengers will generate?”