BA closes OpenSkies from Paris, launches LEVEL – use Avios to Martinique and Guadeloupe

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• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  6 Dec6 December 07:27

  To be pedantic openskies was around before they acquired L’Avion. The original openskies products were called biz, prem+ and econ. Then when they merged in L’Avion they changed to biz bed and renamed the premium economy product to biz seat and claimed it was all business class. I seem to recall in those days the ‘biz seat’ class earned business class TP and ‘biz bed’ first class points but this could be a false memory.

• Bob says:

  6 Dec6 December 07:42

  Still I cannot understand why Level mentionned Martinique and Guadeloupe as a destination, instead of Fort-de-France and Pointe-à-Pitre.
  I guess the target is mainly French customers: there are usually less than 4% of foreigners from Paris and they are coming mainly from French speaking countries.

  And Rob…
  As you write a post France centric today…
  the title should be:
  “BA closes OpenSkies from Paris, launches LEVEL – use Avios to Martinique and Guadeloupe, Johnny Hallyday passed away!”

  Well you couldn’nt know. He died this morning at 2am.
  France is under shock and sadness this morning.

  You could not use Avios or Flying Blue miles to attend its concerts: you had to pay!

  :-)))

  • Rob says:

    6 Dec6 December 08:58

    Yes, was just reading that on the tube. The article implied that I wasn’t meant to know who he was, given his French dominance.

    That said, having been force fed Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? as a kid, the death of Rodney Bewes last week was more newsworthy ……

    • Bob says:

      6 Dec6 December 09:23

      Good point!

      It makes me learn who Rodney Bewes was.

      It is great to see that culture is not yet fully worldwidely standardised.

  • Anna says:

    6 Dec6 December 09:01

    For the same reason I imagine that BA refers to Barbados and Antigua – these are much more familiar names than Bridgetown and St John’s, plus the fact that other nations have towns of the same name!

    • Bob says:

      6 Dec6 December 09:27

      Fair enough!

      I wish success to LEVEL.
      There will be already 4 competitors and 5 flights daily when it launches the routes to Martinique and Guadeloupe, not counting if Norwegian tries those routes.
      And there are not business routes.
      We will see how it works for LEVEL.

    • David Safir says:

      6 Dec6 December 09:45

      ba.com also insists on referring to Sardinia whether searching for flights to Cagliari or to Olbia; to Sicily whether searching for flights to Catania or to Palermo; and to Corsica rather than Figari.

  • RussellH says:

    6 Dec6 December 16:19

    I got the feeling that the BBC presenters this morning did not really know who Johnny Hallyday was either, pronouncing his name in English rather than French. Having spent two lots of school holidays in the 1960s in Limoges, staying with a family who had many of his records, I had a better idea of who he was than Rodney Bewes (who to me was just that other guy who once appeared with James Bolam, for whom I have alot of respect. Beiderbecke Tapes anyone?)

    • Rob says:

      6 Dec6 December 16:41

      Saw all the Beiderbecke stuff ….

    • Fenny says:

      6 Dec6 December 23:14

      How young are these BBC presenters who didn’t know who Johnny Hallyday was??? They wouldn’t have appreciated The Beiderbecke trilogy or When the Boat Comes In.

      Bob was always the under-appreciated Likely Lad.

• Richmond says:

  6 Dec6 December 09:57

  I bought Level ticket last week when new routes opened but it did not ticket for a week and now have email from Iberia telling me to call them or ticket will be cancelled.

  • Roberto says:

    6 Dec6 December 12:34

    Its the security code they will need for the credit card. Most airline systems automatically delete that from their system after a short while.

    BA is a pain with this if you are manually upgrading flights as they often take weeks if not months to ticket ( and charge for ) the deal.

    • RussellH says:

      6 Dec6 December 16:21

      Had problems with this with our Avios upgrade to OAK last summer. We only found out about it when we tried to check-in on line and could not, and then it took about 20 mins on the phone to sort out.

• Lady London says:

  6 Dec6 December 22:14

  Apparently Willie Walsh’s comments when announcing Level’s second base would be Paris, were how pleased IAG is with the load factor and the average revenue achieved so far from Barcelona and had exceeded targets. Also he apparently commented that Level is bringing in new customers to Level’s longhaul flights and not cannibalising Iberia’s existing business.

  I think there’s a good chance that in three or four years we may well see a decent set of competitors offering low(ish) lead-in prices (albeit paying for every option under the sun like meals drinks luggage etc.) across a variety of longhaul destinations.out of Europe. This will be a big change to the current longhaul landscape and I wonder which of the existing carriers will get squeezed? I think IAG is ahead of this trend.

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