If you're a business owner, you know there are certain lines your customers will not allow you to cross, even if they make you more money.
If you run an airline, though, you are bred without shame.
This is why British Airways is now charging for hot water aboard its flights.
Yes, you read that correctly—an airline is finally charging for water. It will also charge for empty cups "at the retail price."
Standard-temperature water will apparently still be free, since the consumption of that is vital for human life.
You'd never think it would be British Airways, which many people associate with its bygone dignified image. But the halcyon days of the British Overseas Airways Corporation are truly dead. In fact, British Airways' approval rating is tumbling with disastrous speed—largely because of hostile customer service decisions like this one.
It adopted the practice of paid seat reservations a few years ago, enraging families that need to sit together, and it recently announced that it will end meal service on many flights and sharply curtail it on flights as long as eight and a half hours. Before that, on continental flights it was only serving tiny dried-out plastic sandwiches in a box anyway—when a service indignity represents a net gain for customers, your business may be adrift.
Three years ago, the influential Which? survey logged passengers who rated British Airways as a four-star airline, but by 2016, it was earning just two stars.
Customers needn't be surprised their flights stink now. British Airways' new CEO used to work at American Airlines.
Don't expect British Airways' service to improve anytime soon. This week it announced that being cheap is its new business strategy, and it is creating a new budget offshoot to compete with Norwegian Air and Iceland's WOW for transatlantic routes.
Last year, British Airways reported a profit of £2.5 billion. That's a lot of hot water. Hope the airline likes it—because it's in hot water with its customers, too.