Leaked VTEC document reports weak Edinburgh <> London rail market share

[Clip]

Then add 1.5-2 hrs for checkin, security, boarding etc.
Then add half an hour at each end to get to/from the city (more if Stansted)

You go from London City and that check in is about 15-30 minutes and you can be out in a similar time.

Depending where you are in London getting there is simple too and they have plenty of flights if you want a weekend away for Leisure

Outbound
Fri, 4 May 2018
all times are local

08:50LCY
1h 30
Direct
10:20EDI
Return
Sun, 6 May 2018

19:55EDI
1h 25
Direct
21:20LCY
Operated by BA Cityflyer

Thats £208 for this weekend away and the best i can see for VTEC is roughly £124 so it is somewhat cheaper than flying but you still have to get to KGX too so that could add another hour depending where in London you are so if you are after more time in Edinburgh and think that time is worth £80 then flight it is.

Thats what they need to compete with at the end of the day and as they have to serve so many other stops its going to be hard to do that - unless you can get the £40 single i saw for the return leg both ways.

 

[Chrism20]

1.5 - 2 hours for checkin is way too long unless you are checking bags.

I’ve seen me being in a taxi passing the park and ride into Edinburgh airport as the inbound plane is turning onto final approach over Port Seton. Upstairs and through the fast track security and you can be at the gate before all the passengers have disembarked from the inbound.

Obviously at London with the exception of London City it takes a good bit longer but at Edinburgh it can be done without breaking a sweat.

Without bags for the hold an hour tops imo

 

[gsnedders]

1.5 - 2 hours for checkin is way too long unless you are checking bags.

Especially if you're doing it regularly. I've got out of bed an hour before departure before, though that was more accident than planning… and I still got to the gate with time to sit down prior to boarding.

 

[mmh]

Cheaper and better for me to fly BHX-AMS-EDI... I can get it on KLM (House airline) for £129, and only 3.5 hours. This includes for me (being a skyteam elite plus member)

-2 checked bags (probably would only check 1 bag)
-Free Economy comfort on KLM and Delta flights + free extra leg room seats on Air France
-Free access to Skyteam lounges (so, I can get a free meal in AMS, and a shower, and a few drinks)
-An attentive crew
-Free snack and refreshments onboard for everyone

So why would I pay (from STA) a train to Crewe, + a train from Crewe to EDI which would cost me £104, take 3hrs 41 mins, and would give me no benefits? You can get silver KLM status after 10 round trips between UK and AMS... What do you get for travelling Virgin Trains in economy? Nothing. This is why people fly now.

None of that makes sense. If you're travelling from Stafford, why haven't you mentioned the hour on the train to get to Birmingham Airport? Even if going from Stafford to Edinburgh via plane from Birmingham made any sense, you'd get a direct flight to Edinburgh, not via Amsterdam so you can have a shower (boggle)

Looking at the fares, a direct 12:30pm flight tomorrow to Edinburgh from Birmingham can be had for 126.00 (Flybe), plus 15.10 for the train to Birmingham. You'd probably leave Stafford on the 10am train or earlier (10:25am might be do-able but who wants to travel on the last possible train to an airport and have the worry of delays or cancellations?). Over the last week that flight has landed between 1:30pm and 1:50pm, so lets say you'll be out of the airport by 2pm. Lets be generous and not bother about whether your final destination is handy for the airport.

4 hours from Stafford, for 141.10 - assuming hand luggage only - an extra 22.00 per hold suitcase.

Or by train...

10:35 Stafford to Edinburgh (change at Crewe) tomorrow is 41.00 for an advance single, arrives 14.17, so marginally quicker than the flight.

You say 104.50 for the train, but that's not comparing like with like. 104.50 is a fully flexible no restrictions ticket. The plane ticket is restricted to a specific flight. If it's available at all, a fully flexible ticket will be eye wateringly expensive. Flybe don't seem to do flexible tickets, you can just pay 15 quid (in advance) to make your ticket changeable, i.e. pay the difference to a different flight)

Plus people don't usually travel one-way, they come back. A fully flexible no restrictions return allowing use of any train to return for a month is 120.10.

So there's no time saving for this journey by flying, and it's considerably more expensive and restrictive. About 260.00 return for fixed flights, no luggage. Train is about 82.00 for fixed trains, or 120.10 flexible.

No amount of "free" snacks is going to make that flight sound appealing.

 

[bspahh]

1.5 - 2 hours for checkin is way too long unless you are checking bags.

I’ve seen me being in a taxi passing the park and ride into Edinburgh airport as the inbound plane is turning onto final approach over Port Seton. Upstairs and through the fast track security and you can be at the gate before all the passengers have disembarked from the inbound.

Obviously at London with the exception of London City it takes a good bit longer but at Edinburgh it can be done without breaking a sweat.

Without bags for the hold an hour tops imo

That is fine on a route with a frequent service, where you don't need to make a specific flight, and you either have a flexible ticket, or don't mind paying for a new ticket when you miss one.

I know someone who lives a 15 minute drive from his local airport (Vienna). He will be in bed until 45 minutes before departure. He'll get up, have a car to take him to the airport, go through the priority line at security and onto his flight. This convenience comes at a price.

My closest airport is an hour away, the flights aren't that frequent, and I don't trust a taxi driver to definitely turn up on time, so a time saving like that would gain me time at home, but I wouldn't be relaxed, so I might as well get to the airport earlier.

 

[FQTV]

1.5 - 2 hours for checkin is way too long unless you are checking bags.

I’ve seen me being in a taxi passing the park and ride into Edinburgh airport as the inbound plane is turning onto final approach over Port Seton. Upstairs and through the fast track security and you can be at the gate before all the passengers have disembarked from the inbound.

Obviously at London with the exception of London City it takes a good bit longer but at Edinburgh it can be done without breaking a sweat.

Without bags for the hold an hour tops imo

Agreed.

The time comparison is, of course, very sensitive to specific circumstances, but here's a scenario of the kind of high-yield customer whose business the airlines and railways might seek to attract:

I am typing this at 14:15 on a Wednesday afternoon, in Canary Wharf. I have just been told that I need to go to Edinburgh.

The next flight from London City is at 16:00. It's £188 (£198 with a bag) and it lands at Turnhouse at 17:20. I'll take an overnight bag but, even if I pay the extra £10 to check it in, the deadline for being at the airport is 15:40 and I therefore have loads of time.

I can print off my boarding pass before I leave the office. I will earn status credit and mileage in the British Airways Executive Club or any oneworld frequent flyer programme. This will help towards ensuring I still have lounge access when I travel from other airports, and might mean that I get free and first access to extra legroom seats on longhaul flights. On this flight, the amount of space is tight, so I probably won't get any work done and there's no WiFi.

At a push, I can get down to the DLR and/or the Tube and make the 15:00 from King's Cross. It's £155.50 in Standard or £194 in First and it gets to Waverley at 19:18. It will be a bit of a rush to get to King's Cross.

Unless I have the VTEC App I will have to stop to pick up a physical ticket at the station, and may have to pay for the ticket myself so that I can use my card to collect it, as I don't know about the PayPal work around. If I pay for it myself, and I am signed up with Nectar, I will earn a few pence of rewards to spend at Sainsbury's. I won't have a seat reservation as it's too late for one. There will be WiFi, which may be free of charge, but if I am in Standard and in an 'airline' seat then the table isn't big enough to work on and I will have to share the power supply.

Apart from the journey time itself, the actual arrival time can be critical in the decision. If I fly and use the tram, I can be at the office in town just after 18:00. If the office is at The Gyle then it could be well before that. If I go by train, I could be on Lothian Road at just after 19:30, or The Gyle by about 19:40. The arrival time variations could therefore be up to almost two hours.

If I fly, I won't worry about not eating during the journey. If I go by train, I'll probably need to have a decent feed before I get to Edinburgh.

I think that it's these real-world scenarios that are important and that drive purchasing decisions and therefore market share.

In the real world scenario of Virgin Trains East Coast vs British Airways, there are a great number of differences in the service offered that reducing the rail journey time by an hour or even two would still not address. In my mind, the VTEC service simply isn't good enough, and the Satsumas (if they're equipped and furnished as expected) won't address (m)any of those deficiencies.

 

[SaveECRewards]

I don't buy the "time is on air travel's side" argument, at least for city centre to city centre travel. It's a little faster, but really not very much.

Figures off the top of my head here, but I doubt they'll be massively off.
For London <> Edinburgh, it's about an hour on the plane.
Then add 1.5-2 hrs for checkin, security, boarding etc.
Then add half an hour at each end to get to/from the city (more if Stansted)
Add 15-30 minutes waiting for luggage if you have any.

That's 3.5-4.5 hours, plus another 15-30 minutes waiting for luggage if you have any. In the best case you've saved an hour over rail, and in the worst case nothing at all, and the intervening time has been spent in taxis and in queues at airports rather than being productive on the train.

Air travel does carry a *perception* of speed, and I suspect that has as much influence on business travel as anything real does.

I did a blog post "Edinburgh to London for a day's work" based on a person needing to spend a full working day in London.

If you need to be in the office a full day 09:00-17:30 only flying to London City (or the sleeper, but this article was comparing VTEC to flying) will let you do this.

The flight would let you comfortably get into the City for 9am, whereas the train (Flying Scotsman) wouldn't get you to the same location until almost 10am. If you work in Canary Wharf that's even easier for London City but it bit more of a pain from King's Cross. You could even have after work drinks and still get home before the train.

 

[Northhighland]

Why is Waverley being a "big open space" a bad thing? I don't even really think it is when compared to King's Cross or Newcastle!

it is usually cold, not an attractive station to wait in. Wind blows right through it. train should be more competitive with Ryan Air, costs in the industry need looked at. Train has a crew similar to a plane, but more passengers. should be more cost effective.

 

[swaldman]

Agreed.

The time comparison is, of course, very sensitive to specific circumstances, but here's a scenario of the kind of high-yield customer whose business the airlines and railways might seek to attract:

That's all fair enough, although you have chosen somebody who starts right next to a small (hence fast) airport. I'm not convinced that very many people fall into this category of "high-yield customer", who has the power to choose their travel provider according to frequent flyer programmes, etc - or as somebody else has mentioned, is allowed to claim the cost of queue-jumping (sorry, "fast track") at the airport. And who is senior enough that repercussions from missing a flight aren't as severe.

I accept that these are the people that the airlines and railways might especially want to attract, but not that there are all that many of them - and hence not that they are hugely significant in terms of market share.

A far larger group of people are mandated to find the cheapest fare they can, which will be Advance on the trains much of the time and which means a different airline each time (so no useful accumulation frequent flyer points) and possibly not much use of London City; who must pay to jump queues at their own expense, if they choose to; who are expected to use public transport to reach the airport / station (so no taxis to Heathrow); who would be in real trouble with management if they arrived 30 minutes before the flight, got held up in a queue, and missed it. Or, leisure travellers, who have similar constraints because it's coming from their own pocket.

At the end of the day I agree that for most people there is a speed advantage from flying, and hence I do accept that faster times would persuade some people - but I still believe that that advantage is very small, such that it isn't a big deal for a lot of journeys.

(incidentally, re 9am meetings in London while living in Edinburgh - it's going to be hellish by any route except the sleeper. Personally I'd probably go for "Please can we make it slightly later", and if that fails find a cheap hotel... )

 

[SaveECRewards]

Agreed.

The time comparison is, of course, very sensitive to specific circumstances, but here's a scenario of the kind of high-yield customer whose business the airlines and railways might seek to attract:

VTEC have shown time and time again the only customers they want to attract are occasional ones, preferably ones that will post selfies with 'Virgin First Class' in the background!

I am typing this at 14:15 on a Wednesday afternoon, in Canary Wharf. I have just been told that I need to go to Edinburgh.

The next flight from London City is at 16:00. It's £188 (£198 with a bag) and it lands at Turnhouse at 17:20. I'll take an overnight bag but, even if I pay the extra £10 to check it in, the deadline for being at the airport is 15:40 and I therefore have loads of time.

The extra £10 doesn't just get you a bag, it also gets you free on the day changes. In your situation you'd probably not need them, but it's useful for a business traveller attending a meeting as they can move to an earlier/later flight if there's space. Don't forget you don't need to print your boarding pass either, but it's an option (you can even get BA to fax it to you!), I've used mobile boarding passes for years without issue, they're well ahead of rail companies in this regard.

Before someone says don't you need ID to fly? They don't check ID when boarding BA domestic flights (some airlines do so be careful if using someone else).

<snipped>

Unless I have the VTEC App I will have to stop to pick up a physical ticket at the station, and may have to pay for the ticket myself so that I can use my card to collect it, as I don't know about the PayPal work around. If I pay for it myself, and I am signed up with Nectar, I will earn a few pence of rewards to spend at Sainsbury's. I won't have a seat reservation as it's too late for one. There will be WiFi, which may be free of charge, but if I am in Standard and in an 'airline' seat then the table isn't big enough to work on and I will have to share the power supply.

To make things worse, if you tried that today you'd get through all the booking steps and then find out that mobile tickets are not currently being offered (due to the many issues with their Travel Buddy app) so you'd have to collect anyway. You could book a mobile ticket through another app (even thetrainline waives their fees for on the day bookings) but not everyone knows this.

Apart from the journey time itself, the actual arrival time can be critical in the decision. If I fly and use the tram, I can be at the office in town just after 18:00. If the office is at The Gyle then it could be well before that. If I go by train, I could be on Lothian Road at just after 19:30, or The Gyle by about 19:40. The arrival time variations could therefore be up to almost two hours.

If I fly, I won't worry about not eating during the journey. If I go by train, I'll probably need to have a decent feed before I get to Edinburgh.

I wish VTEC would understand the importance of a reliable catering service! BA CityFlyer (London City) still gives complimentary snacks and drinks in economy and a decent sized meal in business class, If you need more than that you can always eat before or after the flight. You're only on the plane for about an hour. On the train you have 4+ hours to get hungry if the catering isn't available. In business class you can also order special meals if you have any special requirements (although not in your scenario as they need 24 hours notice).

I think that it's these real-world scenarios that are important and that drive purchasing decisions and therefore market share.

In the real world scenario of Virgin Trains East Coast vs British Airways, there are a great number of differences in the service offered that reducing the rail journey time by an hour or even two would still not address. In my mind, the VTEC service simply isn't good enough, and the Satsumas (if they're equipped and furnished as expected) won't address (m)any of those deficiencies.

From what I know the layout of the Azuma will be very close the the GWR ones, although the first class section will be slightly bigger (the composite first and standard carriage will have more rows of first class on VTEC). There will also be a tiny buffet counter on the VTEC ones which takes away a few rows of seats, to make up for this the VTEC layout has fewer table seats in this carriage.

 

[SaveECRewards]

That's all fair enough, although you have chosen somebody who starts right next to a small (hence fast) airport. I'm not convinced that very many people fall into this category of "high-yield customer", who has the power to choose their travel provider according to frequent flyer programmes, etc - or as somebody else has mentioned, is allowed to claim the cost of queue-jumping (sorry, "fast track") at the airport. And who is senior enough that repercussions from missing a flight aren't as severe.

The whole point of London City airport is it's positioned where there's going to be loads of these high value customers! It's the whole purpose of this airport, although now leisure travellers have started to cotton on to its convenience.

BA makes sense at London City because the alternative (Flybe) uses slower turbo props.

I accept that these are the people that the airlines and railways might especially want to attract, but not that there are all that many of them - and hence not that they are hugely significant in terms of market share.

Lose one person spending £10k/year and you need a lot of seatfroggers to make up the lost revenue. Also if you've ever boarded the BA CityFlyer flights to Edinburgh and Amsterdam you'll see there's a lot of gold cardholders which will be high value customers. In fact in London City they don't give priority boarding to silver and bronze levels because there's so many frequent flyers on these routes they had to limit those who could board in the first batch.

A far larger group of people are mandated to find the cheapest fare they can, which will be Advance on the trains much of the time and which means a different airline each time (so no useful accumulation frequent flyer points) and possibly not much use of London City; who must pay to jump queues at their own expense, if they choose to; who are expected to use public transport to reach the airport / station (so no taxis to Heathrow); who would be in real trouble with management if they arrived 30 minutes before the flight, got held up in a queue, and missed it. Or, leisure travellers, who have similar constraints because it's coming from their own pocket.

Depends on the logic of the company and how valuable your time is. Presumably they consider your time and experience valuable if you're needing to travel. Also as some of the travel will generally fall outside of work time then employees should be looked after. It's a waste of everyone's time to send someone to Luton as it's cheaper when they work in Canary Wharf.

Also employers shouldn't dismiss frequent flyer schemes either. The BA lounge in Edinburgh is a lovely place. I can work productively in there, more so than I can in my office (no distractions).

At the end of the day I agree that for most people there is a speed advantage from flying, and hence I do accept that faster times would persuade some people - but I still believe that that advantage is very small, such that it isn't a big deal for a lot of journeys.

(incidentally, re 9am meetings in London while living in Edinburgh - it's going to be hellish by any route except the sleeper. Personally I'd probably go for "Please can we make it slightly later", and if that fails find a cheap hotel... )

My vote does go for the sleeper too! But when I did have to do this for a while (when I lived in Edinburgh) the London City route was also doable.

 

[swaldman]

Lose one person spending £10k/year and you need a lot of seatfroggers to make up the lost revenue.

Well, yes. This leads me to wonder whether the market share figures that this thread is about are in terms of journey numbers or of revenue. I had been assuming the former - which a few high-spenders would have little impact on - but I guess it could be either.

Depends on the logic of the company and how valuable your time is. Presumably they consider your time and experience valuable if you're needing to travel. Also as some of the travel will generally fall outside of work time then employees should be looked after. It's a waste of everyone's time to send someone to Luton as it's cheaper when they work in Canary Wharf.

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The number of 6am Easyjets in my consultancy past does not match your idealism

Also employers shouldn't dismiss frequent flyer schemes either. The BA lounge in Edinburgh is a lovely place. I can work productively in there, more so than I can in my office (no distractions).

The travel policies of my last three employers have specifically said that frequent flyer schemes may not be taken into consideration when finding the cheapest route.

 

[SaveECRewards]

Well, yes. This leads me to wonder whether the market share figures that this thread is about are in terms of journey numbers or of revenue. I had been assuming the former - which a few high-spenders would have little impact on - but I guess it could be either.

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The number of 6am Easyjets in my consultancy past does not match your idealism

The travel policies of my last three employers have specifically said that frequent flyer schemes may not be taken into consideration when finding the cheapest route.

I assume the former too, as counting market share on numbers is easier that counting it on revenue.

Remember although your experience says otherwise (and I'm sure it applies to many people) - if you visit London City on a weekday you will see full flights and many people with priority boarding (only available with either frequent flyer status or those who book business class). There's obviously many people in many industries that still let their employees take the best option rather than sending someone who lives in the Docklands area over to Luton to catch an early flight.

If frequent flyer schemes did not influence travel they wouldn't exist. BA is not a charity and they are looking to cut costs as much as possible. If BA Executive Club wasn't pulling its weight it would be gone!

It may be the case that the majority of people these days have to take the cheapest flight, but that also applies to the cheapest train ticket too no doubt. Despite all this there's still people who buy first anytime train tickets and are allowed to by company policy.

If I worked for a company that insisted that I head to Luton for a 6am flight when I could get an 8am flight from an airport nearer home I would be looking for a new job sharpish. When booking personal travel I look at the whole spectrum of things primarily schedules and then convenience of departure airport. I then look at flight options with airlines I have frequent flyer status with and only if the price is ridiculous I start looking at less convenient options.

 

[telstarbox]

Agreed.

The time comparison is, of course, very sensitive to specific circumstances, but here's a scenario of the kind of high-yield customer whose business the airlines and railways might seek to attract:

I am typing this at 14:15 on a Wednesday afternoon, in Canary Wharf. I have just been told that I need to go to Edinburgh. ...

Very interesting post. So perhaps the next question is - how many people are there in London / Edinburgh (and by extension Glasgow?) who are important enough to their firms that they might need to travel between the cities at such short notice, and how often does that happen?

 

[SaveECRewards]

Very interesting post. So perhaps the next question is - how many people are there in London / Edinburgh (and by extension Glasgow?) who are important enough to their firms that they might need to travel between the cities at such short notice, and how often does that happen?

My blog post has another use case where flying to London City beats the train. Seeing how busy London City airport is with business travellers it seems that there's many that fit into this category. If your office is based in Canary Wharf or the City then flying to London City will beat the train for end to end journey time. Once Crossrail is fully open it makes Heathrow so much more convenient and the 20 May Thameslink timetable changes will help make Gatwick more accessible.

Even Newcastle has its weekly regulars and the only flights to London are Heathrow and BA has a monopoly on this route. As @Arctic Troll noted (not sure if it was this thread of another one) BA seem to have realised they can win some business off VTEC now, they only used to care about connecting passengers but since last year they've started aggressively pricing their less busy services to win over passengers. East Coast managed to kill off all the other point to point airline competition (for example easyJet and Flybe have both tried Gatwick and Stansted) and BA only continued so passengers in the North East would consider connecting internationally with BA rather than KLM or Emirates. Now BA seem to have realised all is not rosy with VTEC and are gaining share on this route.

 

[Chrism20]

Very interesting post. So perhaps the next question is - how many people are there in London / Edinburgh (and by extension Glasgow?) who are important enough to their firms that they might need to travel between the cities at such short notice, and how often does that happen?

I’ve heard it mentioned before that upto half the seats on some of the LCY BA services from Edinburgh are blocked corporate ones.

 

[swaldman]

I’ve heard it mentioned before that upto half the seats on some of the LCY BA services from Edinburgh are blocked corporate ones.

Heh. OK. So "companies with major presences in London (possibly nr City airport) and Edinburgh, who don't mind spending enough to block seats daily in case they need them".
Guess that's the banks then

 

[DenmarkRail]

None of that makes sense. If you're travelling from Stafford, why haven't you mentioned the hour on the train to get to Birmingham Airport? Even if going from Stafford to Edinburgh via plane from Birmingham made any sense, you'd get a direct flight to Edinburgh, not via Amsterdam so you can have a shower (boggle)

Looking at the fares, a direct 12:30pm flight tomorrow to Edinburgh from Birmingham can be had for 126.00 (Flybe), plus 15.10 for the train to Birmingham. You'd probably leave Stafford on the 10am train or earlier (10:25am might be do-able but who wants to travel on the last possible train to an airport and have the worry of delays or cancellations?). Over the last week that flight has landed between 1:30pm and 1:50pm, so lets say you'll be out of the airport by 2pm. Lets be generous and not bother about whether your final destination is handy for the airport.

4 hours from Stafford, for 141.10 - assuming hand luggage only - an extra 22.00 per hold suitcase.

Or by train...

10:35 Stafford to Edinburgh (change at Crewe) tomorrow is 41.00 for an advance single, arrives 14.17, so marginally quicker than the flight.

You say 104.50 for the train, but that's not comparing like with like. 104.50 is a fully flexible no restrictions ticket. The plane ticket is restricted to a specific flight. If it's available at all, a fully flexible ticket will be eye wateringly expensive. Flybe don't seem to do flexible tickets, you can just pay 15 quid (in advance) to make your ticket changeable, i.e. pay the difference to a different flight)

Plus people don't usually travel one-way, they come back. A fully flexible no restrictions return allowing use of any train to return for a month is 120.10.

So there's no time saving for this journey by flying, and it's considerably more expensive and restrictive. About 260.00 return for fixed flights, no luggage. Train is about 82.00 for fixed trains, or 120.10 flexible.

No amount of "free" snacks is going to make that flight sound appealing.

1) I clearly said it is more beneficial for ME to go via AMS... May not be for others.
2) The train takes more like 45 mins from STA.
3) You quote £260 for return fixed flights, but KLM quotes me only £109.
4) I wouldn't fly Flybe to EDI, as it would benefit me in NO WAY.
5) You take my shower point out of context... I can go to the lounge in AMS for an hour, get a meal, a drink, and a shower, and still be at EDI sooner than if I was getting the train - Even if the train was quicker, it is more beneficial for me to fly.

 

[Chrism20]

Heh. OK. So "companies with major presences in London (possibly nr City airport) and Edinburgh, who don't mind spending enough to block seats daily in case they need them".
Guess that's the banks then

My work has seats on some services and we aren’t in the financial industry.

And the majority of seats on LCY services are used.

From city airport you can be at Stratford in 20 minutes and Excel or Bank in about the same. The amount of offices etc in the east end now is incredible.

 

[HowardGWR]

Just out of interest, given the OP's title, I was actually surprised VTEC had so high a proportion! (Given the numbers of interlining pax, and the longer than three hour rail journey (more than 4 hours generally).).

Edit: Going by the Paris market experience, those proportions will reverse when HS? reduces the time by rail to 2.5 hours (say).

 

[gsnedders]

Remember although your experience says otherwise (and I'm sure it applies to many people) - if you visit London City on a weekday you will see full flights and many people with priority boarding (only available with either frequent flyer status or those who book business class). There's obviously many people in many industries that still let their employees take the best option rather than sending someone who lives in the Docklands area over to Luton to catch an early flight.

Until they changed to the grouped boarding recently, the EDI/GLA–LHR flights often had more people in the "Priority" (i.e., BAEC Gold/Silver/Bronze plus the former "UK Business" fares) boarding queue than the general boarding one. That always surprised me much more than the LCY flights being like that.

 

[InOban]

Has no-one heard of video conferencing? I sometimes think that some people insist on face to face meetings just so that they can top up their Points towards their next holiday.

 

[SaveECRewards]

Has no-one heard of video conferencing? I sometimes think that some people insist on face to face meetings just so that they can top up their Points towards their next holiday.

Some people are very traditional and don't like video conferencing, if more people were allowed to work from home in jobs where location doesn't matter it would also help reduce overcrowding on commuter trains into London (but that's a different issue).

But if people are really organising pointless face to face meetings just to get miles/points then VTEC should have also been in on it. Without the free tickets to encourage me I've spent fewer weekends away in places served by VTEC and more weekends away on impulse Avios trips on BA. Whatever reason people are choosing to travel VTEC should make it more compelling to use the train.

They can't do much about time but they could easily be the best with Rewards (like EC was), catering (which, weekends excepted, they should be if they deliver the advertised service) and on-board benefits like WiFi. Why not give those who buy a standard anytime ticket a free hot drink and a snack (biscuit, crisps, etc) small things like that can help.

 

[Chrism20]

Has no-one heard of video conferencing? I sometimes think that some people insist on face to face meetings just so that they can top up their Points towards their next holiday.

Cant speak for others but with my company no one is flying about simply for random face to face meetings or to rack up the avios.

The tech guys apparently use about a quarter of the seats we have booked.

We also have a couple that commute a couple of times a week working a couple days in London and a couple up here.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Has no-one heard of video conferencing?

Video conferencing is a great way of making a ten minute task take two hours. Useful for stuff like project updates, useless for project planning.

 

[marks87]

Has no-one heard of video conferencing?

Yes. I use it frequently to meet with the partners from five other countries that work on the same project as me (research-based software engineering).

But last week I flew to one of those countries for an actual meeting, because if you need to collaborate on a certain task then Skype* can only go so far. Being able to sit beside someone while solving a problem, and taking over their keyboard if needs be, is invaluable. Or sit round a whiteboard and sketch things out. Or anything else you can’t do when not actually in the same physical location.

We went from having a bunch of loosely-related components, to a working prototype in four days. It would have taken at least a fortnight to get to the same stage if we just did it all remotely.

*Other teleconferencing software is available.

 

[Class 170101]

No can do, at least not under the current fares regulatory regime - the Super Off-Peak fare (on East Coast priced flows) is the regulated fare and it cannot be withdrawn at the weekend.

If that is the case then why can the regulated fare be time restricted elsewhere?

 

[Joe Paxton]

If that is the case then why can the regulated fare be time restricted elsewhere?

UIVMM regulated fares are not time restricted at the weekend (and on bank holidays). Regulated fares may be either the Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak fare depending on the route.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Video conferencing is a great way of making a ten minute task take two hours. Useful for stuff like project updates, useless for project planning.

Without wanting to sound like an IT salesman (I'm not), video conferencing systems can vary significantly in their quality and effectiveness.

 

[takno]

Has no-one heard of video conferencing? I sometimes think that some people insist on face to face meetings just so that they can top up their Points towards their next holiday.

Heard of it. Use it daily. Still need to see pretty much everyone I work with at least a couple of times a year, and the increase in remote working means that they are spread out a lot more than they ever used to be. The flip side of that is that we are doing more occasional long-distance travel and far less daily commuting.