Member Info for big-blue

We shall see - this time next year whether the news will be of routes closing, airlines going under and fleets being reduced thanks to a decline in business travel, or planes being so heavy with fat business men they are having trouble taking off [flight deck jokes, been in the jump seat on many occasions and heard then one about 2 degrees more flaps because the captain watched a right fat bastard waddle up the steps lol]. Some say up, some say down, some say just shut up. Well at least my averaging up with Easy Jet has an immediate pay off. Just need to get the timing right now to bail Easy and all in IAG. Time to return to making money with these dogs.

.... and another thing, time zones. When you lot are in your conference calls with Japan, US Aus or even Dubai, who is calling the shots on the call time of day? Are you all happy to be getting out of bed or waiting up till two in the morning to take part in a 10 min call? What confidence do you think all those line managers have in your level of sobriety - or you in theirs late at night and early morning? And conference calling multiple locations around the world on successive days/evenings?

I can tell you exactly how long that key technical or sales rep will stay with your company when they find most of the week they are working a night shift due to the necessary times fore the conference calls. Either they are on the plane face to face with the same space to acclimatise just as before or they will be gone by the weekend and they will not be working their notice.

I guarantee that there will be enough of a return to business flight that every available seat will be filled. I guarantee that there will be companies looking at their competitor websites proudly proclaiming stay at home green credentials and getting their best people on the first plane straight to the heart of their competitor market shaking hands and grossing out the entertainment budget. I guarantee that all around the planet guarantees that the midnight conference calls will be stopped as soon as travel permits and people will be able to go face to face.

Those who think the world is going to work by conference call are genuinely deluded. I remember the times the faf trying to set up business calls between three parties resulted in all of us taking a short city hopper to Frankfurt airport, meeting up in a bar, covering a lot of ground involving A1 technical drawings with quick layout sketches and amendments [try that on Teams if you dare!] and all three parties able to flesh out the Gantt chart then sitting back for a spot of lunch, bonding, and then back to UK to report back to the office and home early. That was UK, Germany and Dutch engineers. You will never be able to having such constructive meetings over copper or fibre. It is a challenge just to indicate what you are pointing at. Stretching your arm out and elbowing someone else out of the way just can't be done on the video conference, lol.

FTSE, if the 'changes' are imposed forever and there is no end to lockdown or free travel, then maybe you are correct. But the present working environment is due to the forced situation. Remove the forced situation and allow the choice and the working environment that developed and established itself over decades will absolutely definitely return. Frankley, if you do not think so then what the hell are you doing having any interest in this stock?

I'm sure those with the new world order widgets to sell would love to see the end of air travel. It will return, and so will the passengers. A number of you seem to be believing that because people are forced to behave in a certain way that the behaviour becomes ingrained and the norm. Oh but it doesn't. It never does. People iterate back to what works best for them and in the most part that is a return to what they were doing before. How many business and home computer users would be happy going back to the Windows 3.1? Or being able to stay with XP? Too many delude themselves in IT that the latest big thing is the best ever and everybody is going to love it. A lot of people I know, including me, are back-peddling from smart phones back to a basic mobile as a phone. Too much hassle with batteries running out, apps not working unless you have the latest million pound model, huge data costs, apps freezing, very poor app imitations of the proper web sites, awful speakers, awful microphones, drop outs, signal failure, ahhh sod it done with it. I managed perfectly well before, what a relief not having to try and force all that tech junk to work for me. Just sits in the car now as a free sat nav. And many are going the same route.

The point is, all this video conferencing could easily have been done pre-covid.

Why wasn't it? Huge cost saving, time saved, home life balance. Why was it not well established or being so deeply implemented before?

You have to think the full 360. Simple linear numbers on a spreadsheet are only a small part of it. Status and kudos are a very big part of it too. Ask why all this video meeting was a small part of business interaction only a year ago. The increase has been forced on the world. It will not continue at anywhere near the same level post covid and indeed the moment lockdowns open, people travel.

See how far you get at the next expo. Get a local company to set up your view screen VR headsets and microphones and try and sell your widgets and services without actually being there against the stands either side of you with a real life living person on hand. See how far you get!

There will be a full return and possibly an expansion on business related travel and every single business seat will be full because of the STATUS SYMBOL. If you did have anything to do with airlines, manufacturing or other, you would know this as a fundamental basic rule. I will repeat, even Ryanair and Spirt and Lion, all of them cash in on the vanity market too.

The only one? OK. Explains why some many are invested in an airline that has such a reliance on expensive seats then. If it is as you insist, hardly no business class then IAG would see in it's forward market research that there is no point in carrying on and call it a day. But is doesn't. And as for all this cloud business and other rosy tinted new world visions, seen it so many times before. They always end up more a problem than they appear to solve. And to all those happy to run their company and store their data on a remote server vulnerable to theft, hacking, breakdown and once the reliance is established massive price inflation, good luck. That must explain why so many smaller companies are moving their IT operations in house including their own web hosting. Yup, all hail the cloud [personal data sale begins next week].

Gove was mentioned as the minister doing the review into travel reopening and we were all expecting his report on 12th April. But he went quite and was no part of what seems to have been a review rushed out early on 9th April. His silence has been conspicuous since then. He has popped up in a news story now and seems to be tasked with setting up the travel passport and it will probably look at lot like Israel's. He is a key name in the news can make or break the sp - hence he is watched and followed.

Of course Ghia, events lead to adaption. In some cases the forced adaption can work, in most others it doesn't and we muddle through until we can return to normal. I would imagine in your situation there has had to be a transfer of liability though. There is frequently regression to former working practices after the introduction of new methodologies and technologies. The seats on the planes you may not need in the future will be taken by others who have discovered the exact opposite to your business and will now ensure they have their people in place permanently. There will be some swings and roundabouts but the extent that some expect of this brave new world based on a few news stories on the 10 o'clock news trying to tell us all the whole world has changed has never settled in the past. You will still be going on site, otherwise you will simply loose the business and be nothing more than a widget seller. The need to retain the installation, maintenance, training and operation income I bet leads to a gradual increase in boots on the ground for you though - or at least longer visits to keep the contact alive. I've seen this many times before when engineering companies pull the on-site portakabin from the site and expect to be able to conduct business from their base with the occasional visit. They are not there to capitalise on events to get extra work, adapt to the changing schedules well and even end up incurring penalties. The number of times people have had to be put on the first flight out at any cost because there are no boots on-site doesn't bear thinking. We will see.

IMO the only one single change that has properly taken place is the establishment of the mobile phone as a non-regressive tool.

Right, bought more Easy Jet for big gain over next few days as back track on airport testing and travel corridors to holiday spots (esp islands) in the Med are given high speculation. Then ready to dump all Easy Jet and all in to IAG pre May 17th with the gamble on travel corridor to US with minimal testing. Then out at 250+ by mid May.

I am encouraged by the noises coming out of the transport select committee. They are outside the Downing street malaise and we can but hope the message gets through from the select committee that significant changes are needed, especially for the return leg. With the revelation of what Give is actually up to behind the scenes, maybe the travel ban lobby can be elbowed out and things come together for the 17th May announcements, or will it be 12th May, who knows? Green list will be announced earlier.

.... but you are only using teams because you are forced to. When there are no more lockdowns and all the masks are thrown away, I bet the only use of teams will be to arrange what time to meet up at the airport and arrange the hotels at the other end.

As for saving millions on your flights, less use of the company jet will save millions of course, you would be better off with business class in that case. Those Lear's are a bit over expensive these days.

I should also have added, people young and old are even returning to vinyl records. I mean, after all the so called advances with CD and mp3, the judgment is - vinyl is best. Why? Because it is analogue. Analogue tube amplifiers have been back in vogue for many years now. Face to face is the analogue equivalent of conferencing. It will never superseded by technology. Post lockdown will look very much the same as pre-lockdown and the return I think will be very fast. Look what happens now when there is a minor lifting of restrictions!

marab, I've seen it all before, new gadget this and that to change how everything will be in the future.

You would be gob smacked if you knew how many thoroughly modern businesses still use paper fax machines. VR will not take off in the same way headsets for phones didn't. Remember how for a brief period half the population seems to be wearing a bluetooth headset? Where are they now? VR headsets are no way a substitute for being there no matter how good they are in a virtual game world. The REAL world is a very different thing.

marab, for your job in your industry that may be the case and it maybe your company was moving that way anyway in order to keep the business afloat or line the owners pockets. But in a way you prove my point. If one of your colleagues is offered the same job elsewhere with a couple of business class seats thrown in when the inevitable client meeting must happen, will they stay with you at the arse end of the plane or be up front with their feet up? And that is why a return to full seats will happen far quicker than most are trying to imagine.

And also, the actual economic impact is very much lower than most think. Whilst big compared to previous troubled times, it has been pointed out that the credit crunch did far more damage to the world economy in the same space of time.

I should say though that a longer term limiting factor is on the cards and as announced by the UK government intervention on how often you maybe able to travel will be introduced. But not it is something that will require intervention to restrict people's free choice. If people were naturally migrating to online meetings then there would be no need for the introduction of travel restrictions that will be required now aviation is being lumped in with all the other green crap.

But left turners need not worry, may have to plant a few more trees but if you have money, you will be able to travel how you wish.

marab, living in the past? Well this covid travel restriction has only been around for a year or so. There was little appetite for video conferencing before and it had been tried many times. The most important example being the numerous climate change related conferences. Many times video conferencing was proposed but never came about because of the nature and need for face to face as humans. If ever there was to be a move to video conferencing it would have already happened there. The covid situation has forced video conferencing, but in reality how many main events such as expos actually ended up being staged online? Why didn't the entertainment festivals simply go online? Many people have found the video conferencing to be very limited and certainly not the place to assess the behaviour and intent of others involved.

A return to pre-covid assembly will happen quickly, only limited to the extent lockdowns are lifted. The social isolation might lead to more face to face as the lack of contact has been commented on repeatedly as a negative in workplace and social interaction.

Business class and all the bells and whistles are status symbols. In the same way that two window offices become more important than the salary [because the bonus is worth 100 times more anyway], limo cars to airports, travel upgrades and apartment hotel suites will be on the self-important list of the executives and aspirational list of the pen pushers as it has always been. And every leg up the ladder the pen pushers get, the executives add more rungs on the luxury and convenience ladder to keep that socially superior distance. It has always been like it, it will always been like it. The covid pandemic will not alter that at all. In fact the opposite may happen as many lobby that they deserve better travel grades because of their contribution. Even if there is more video conferencing built into the business landscape, what is the purpose for it? Simply to prepare the ground for a face to face, which has been the story from the 80's onwards and before that it was telephone conferencing to sett up the face to face. At every level, business, sport, entertainment, leisure, diplomatic, political, climate change junkets - the lot, face to face will always dominate and those travelling will always be looking to improve the travel experience. Think it through, even Ryanair passengers have upgrade options!!!! You seriously think BA and the rest are going to back peddle on upgrade options? I stand firm, you do not have any understanding of the market.

I predict speedbird, every seat in the airlines can get in the air will be full including all left turn seats! The big question is what kind of market research data will airlines use to determine what services it will open up. The return leg testing issue will severely reduce expected market size. For the business class it is more the issue of time at the airport, but I will expect the VIP service to be significantly expanded to 'help' out fast tracking and reducing any hanging about time. That's where the two tier systems will really be, not at the theatre door.

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/2021-04-us-safe-travel-countries-cdc-flights-16118369.php?ipid=exco-read-more

UK on the do not travel list for US.

The EU political cauldron bubbling away. "But hotspots such as Spain, Portugal and Greece could reportedly defy the EU and allow visitors." and the indication of the limiting factor some are using to brake Britain's independent move to free travel, " The EU said its vaccine passport scheme will be in place by July, with Justice commissioner Didier Reynders pushing for talks with the UK."
So as I have been saying before, some parts of the bloc are breaking away despite the bloc trying to enforce strict compliance. And the UK timetable being pegged to the EU timetable.

Gove, finally we hear what has happened to Gove. And this points to the bitter battle within Dowingin St. He seems to have been pushed from the April 9th/12th review being replaced by the Transport Secretary. Instead he seems to be working behind the scenes, preparing the travel vacc passport. So that looks great, but looking back over the political shenanigans of this year, I would expect strong moves against the vacc passport trying to keep Britain delayed in free travel. Indeed, this news story a month or two ago and the sp would have shot up, but little reaction today - market a bit weary of this sort of news now.

However, the return leg. There is still a major issue with the complications on the return leg. One significant question that will be asked louder and louder, if only a vacc passport is required on the outward leg, then why can the same not be required on the return leg? There are still some mega hurdles to overcome.

If you think sppedbird that the business market has gone and is unlikely to return, then with respect you have no understanding of the market. Absolutely NO understanding. A brief glance at the data of the likes of Qatar that have kept flying shows a very healthy present business market if the planes are flying and the big social move to remote working and video conferencing is bigged up by a couple of commentators, but are very much a problem for most others. Video conferencing predates the world wide web by a decade or so. It only had a limited market then, and it only managed a limited market with the world wide web and even with things like 3 and 4G. It is like a live event, being there is many times better than watching on a monitor somewhere. Often the journey itself is critical psychological preparation routine before the big meeting.

You have made rather a fool of yourself with your comment.