Times are tough for British Airways - of that there is no doubt. If it isn't the environmental lobby pounding on your door screaming 'CONTRAILS' at the top of their voice, it's the bloody chav airlines, namely Ryanair, offering flights to '[somewhere near] Milan' for ten quid and a packet of peanuts. And that's before you even go through the door marked 'DO NOT MENTION' and discover an evil, grinning Richard Branson hatching plans to nick your routes and passengers - not to mention suing you left, right and centre for being bigger than his airline - s'not fair...Bearing in mind how uniformly disliked BA are, I expected the blog waves to be packed, like Heathrow on a bank holiday weekend, with further reasons to hate them. But actually there was very little - or should I say, no more than other airlines.
Unsuprisingly, considering the green revolution sweeping the nation, all airlines are under the cosh for their contribution to the end of the world. Bloggers are fairly united in condemning them such as this one entitled "How do you reconcile promoting recreational air travel with being green?" though very few of them seem to have actual data to work off (I've yet to read any which compare the impact of recreational travel with freight, for instance). But most of the condemnation is laid at the door of the low-cost airlines and especially Ryanair. One only has to type 'I hate Ryanair' into google search to be inundated with venemous blogs - I have set up a list of links over --> to show the top search returns for this.
Netvibes didn't produce much enlightenment on the blog front with most being about lost luggage - though the BBC newsfeed did supply some interesting insight into the battle for the Transatlantic route and the business traveller's wallet. The Open Skies pact between the USA and Europe has created an opportunity for Virgin Atlantic to pinch the bottom of the great BA once again, with both airlines set to create business-only services to key American and European cities. Not so strangely, there is little mention from the business community of the environmental impact of yet more long haul flights with even fewer passengers per flight - someone somewhere better be planting a LOT of trees!So what have I learned? That the internet is full of information on brands and businesses but the key is how to filter it. I have set up a Netvibes page including feeds from Boardreader for my clients and started updating them weekly on interesting stories - be it a business development on one of their competitors or an insight from one of their cutomers. It is a thoroughly useful tool and one that benefits both my understanding of my clients' businesses as well as making them think my finger is on the pulse of their industry. Little do they know the other half of my day is spent on Facebook!
