British Airways continues to price itself at the high end of the market over this busy summer period, despite the diminishing trust in the brand that has resulted in many strike-fatigued passengers switching allegiances to other carriers in the recent past.
Emirates Business compared BA's airfare with four other popular airlines that operate on the Dubai/Abu Dhabi-London route for the travel period of July 8-24, only to see the United Kingdom-based carrier emerged as the second most expensive flight at Dh3,962 on flight search engine Cleartrip.ae – losing the top spot to Emirates by a mere Dh4.
BA's arch-rival Virgin Atlantic Airways came in third spot with a Dh3,547 return airfare.
The carrier had announced last December its bookings had increased as a result of the strife at BA, with traffic up three per cent that month when BA cabin crew voted for a Christmas walkout that was later blocked by a UK court.
However, insiders said this surge in Virgin Atlantic bookings was partially due to a result of BA's commercial policy where the airline has offered to rebook on another date or with another airline for no extra charge for its passengers.
Meanwhile, Britain's industry mediator has put forward confidential proposals this week to try and end a long-running dispute between the airline and the union.
Cabin crew has staged a series of five-day strikes in a dispute that has cost the airline about £150 million (Dh814m) so far, or £7m losses on average per day. The Unite union said last week that it would ballot members on further industrial action.
When Emirates Business quizzed BA over its summer pricing policy, a spokesperson said: "Our year round lead-in fares are very competitive across our unrivalled worldwide network to over 175 destinations. However, we constantly review our prices looking at the demand and supply in each market to ensure that we remain competitive and bring our customers increased value for money.
"We are constantly working to offer promotional fares to boost our competitiveness on key routes and maintain customer satisfaction and have a number of offers planned for the weeks and months ahead."
While industry analysts are predicting a definite outcome to the fresh round of proposals this week between the two warring parties, this moment couldn't come soon enough.
According to figures released by the airline, BA recorded a 5.8 percentage points drop in passenger load factors for the Middle East and Africa region across April-May.
The airline carried a 66.9 per cent load for the Middle East and Africa region in April-May 2010, down from the 72.7 per cent noted over the same period last year.
For the month of May alone, BA saw a 7.9 percentage points year on year drop in the load factor for the region, falling from 68.5 per cent in 2009 to 60.6 per cent this year, making MEA the worst performing sector for Europe's third largest carrier.
BA also saw a 6.5 per cent decrease in premium traffic and a 12.5 per cent decrease in non-premium traffic over the same period.
Quizzed if the airline expected summer bookings to be affected by the recent strikes, the spokesperson said: "We believe it is premature to speculate on the impact of this unjustified industrial action on bookings. We remain available for talks with Unite at any time in order to resolve this unnecessary dispute that has continued for far too long."
Meanwhile, BA CEO Willie Walsh has extended an olive branch of sorts by turning down this year's £334,000 bonus.
"I'm sure Walsh will feel himself that he can't take the bonus and then put forward arguments that times are hard," John Strickland, an aviation consultant at JLS Consulting in London, told Bloomberg.