British Airways, why the (minimum) 14 award seats per flight is a revolution

The news we gave in recent days is, arguably, one destined to make a lot of noise in the frequent flyer world and will no doubt be copied shortly by other companies as well.

If you do not know what we are talking about, we will give you a brief summary. British Airways has made it official that starting next July 28. On each intercontinental flight, the following will be guaranteed A minimum of 14 award places.

Eight seats World Traveller (the economy), two in World Traveller Plus (the premium economy cabin) and as many as 4 in the most exclusive Club World, or business class.

Because it is a revolution

For those who, like me, have begun to move the First steps in the world of reward travel aiming for a ticket of magnificent class Alitalia and had to sweat every reservation, having 14 award seats on every flight is a dream. Of course it is "only" 4 business seats, but considering that it affects all flights, you will have no less than 80 to 100 award seats available each day to fly to the United States (with Alitalia at the height of the summer season it was as low as 14 to 16 seats).

Not only that, this choice will also push competitors such as Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa and American airlines to make a similar move so as not to leave all this marketing and word-of-mouth advantage to the OneWorld alliance company.

The only ones who will gain from this will be serial accumulators of points and miles who will then be able to obtain free flights much more easily on the entire network of BA destinations.

In particular, this is a great opportunity for families with children. In the past, finding more than 2 award seats in business class was a mirage, but today BA provides a number of seats to suit every type of family or group of friends.

Because it's great news for us Italians

Certainly British Airways is not Alitalia, and the Avios program not is the Millemiglia. However, we are talking about the second most popular loyalty program in our country. Although it has recently lost the credit cards that allowed people to accumulate Avios points in Italy, is the only one-other than Millemiglia-that gives Italian members the opportunity to earn points by shopping at Esselunga and is also the most generous in terms of accumulation possibilities compared to competitors such as FlyngBlue and Miles&More.

This means that Italian members will also benefit from this abundance of seat availability in the next 12 to 18 months, when hopefully the world will again be open to nonessential travel.

In addition, another important aspect should not be underestimated: given Alitalia's crisis, Italian passengers will be forced to stop over at one of the major hubs of European airlines and beyond to reach their final destination, so choosing London over Frankfurt or Paris is not a major inconvenience.

Because it costs BA nothing and in return it gets lots of good publicity

One would think that giving up 14 seats on every flight would be a big expense, but-except during peak season-the fill rate of BA flights was definitely not that of Ryanair. Add to this the fact that all estimates speak to the fact that it will be at least a couple of years before we return to air traffic similar to pre-pandemic, and it is easy to see that British does in fact put a disposition of places that would most likely remain unsold.

During these 18 months of the health emergency, serial accumulators have not been able to spend their accumulated points, so by doing so BA is doing a "sympathy operation" toward customers and at the same time trying to lure passengers back on board by making them spend their accumulated Avios and triggering a virtuous circle that will bring more fresh money into the coffers.