Originally posted by preiffer
Not talking about the out and back olympic trip itself (as I previously clarified). I'm on about the training flights over the past few years, right up until July. The list of athletes not using BA is a lot longer than those that were... (or COULD, even, given their equipment rules!)
Im sorry I don't see the problem with this. BA have paid an awful lot of money to sponsor Team GB. They have blocked out at least two flights to the far east and are now getting their reward. I wonder how much of the hotel bill in Macau was covered through money from the BA sponsorship for example.
How is this different to VS who are not the official airline of the PGA (delta is) but will be flying the Ryder Cup team to the US and thus getting all the glory? Like the Olympics and the World Judo championships they are two separate events.
It is up to each national governing body how they get their athletes around out of Olympics time. By being a Tier 1 sponsor of the BOA, BA are not signing up to transporting the judo team everytime they compete or go on a training camp or indeed the sailors or athletes. They are signing up to carry the sailors/judo competitiors when they are representing Team GB at the Olympics.
If VS became the offical carrier to UK Athletics then they would carry the team to next years world champs in Berlin, come the Olympics it would be BA that would carry them.
To be honest, speaking as an athlete who competed abroad, all I was concerned with was getting to the race as cheap as possible. If this meant flying Easyjet then I would.
Originally posted by mas66
If VS have been flying so many athletes around the world (with all their equipment) for so many years then who is to blame if nobody knows ? surely that rests squarely with VS PR ?
Exactly.
