Would it kill BA to butter us up rather than battering our air miles?

It’s the Budget, innit.” So said a British Airways statement, more or less, on its decision to shaft some of its most loyal customers: those who get perks because they fly a lot.

The national carrier has told them that from 15 December, the cost of a “reward flight” via its Avios loyalty scheme will go up due to a “combination of factors”, including tax hikes on flying, in Rachel Reeves’s latest Budget.

Other “factors” include “third-party charges, changing market conditions” – whatever that means – and “inflation” (duh).

But in its statement shared with The Independent, “air passenger duty” was front and centre.

“We’ve given members as much notice as we could to help them plan ahead,” it added.

Well, thanks, guys! That’s mighty Christmassy of you. What’s next? A lump of coal with your crisps on that flight to Barcelona?

Here’s what struck me when I read this: the changes to the scheme come into force from 15 December. The Budget’s inflation-busting taxes on flying, on the other hand, don’t land on customers until April.

I rather suspect that this has been in the works for a while because figuring out changes to fairly complicated loyalty schemes isn’t something that happens overnight and requires high-level approval.

On the other hand, it is fairly easy to update a customer email and/or press statement to divert attention from your own penny pinching in favour of blaming an unpopular chancellor.

Look, I have no problems criticising Reeves. I have done so, at length. I will do so again. Her management of the economy looks disturbingly like Ruben Selles’s management of my beloved Sheffield United. (He was fired, having steered the Blades to six straight Championship defeats at the start of the season.)

But I also know that she and her Budget have become a very handy excuse for companies casting around for scapegoats when they decide to clobber their customers.

BA could have absorbed the changes to air passenger duty, sacrificing some margin to keep customers sweet. It could have looked at its cost base and reduced it. Companies regularly boast about their cost-cutting plans as a means of buttering up shareholders. Would it kill BA to butter up its customers for a change?

Apparently so, because BA did neither. It decided that customers were going to pick up the slack. And sure, sometimes businesses do that. Inflation and all that (as BA also said). But wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a business own its decisions for a change? Perhaps say: “BA is in business to make money and to remain profitable; we are having to alter the terms of our customer loyalty scheme. We apologise to them. We will try to do our best for them in future.”

There. Fixed it for you. See how easy that was?

But then, BA has form here. The company had to revise changes to its Executive Club – rebranded as Club – programme after a new model based on customer spend, rather than distance travelled, was criticised by members who pointed out that the changes made it harder to gain top-tier status.

I won’t dive deep into the details, because the whole thing is, shall we say, quite involved. But it is not so complicated that sharp-eyed customers didn’t smell a rat.

Bottles of water may also be on the way out (it’s being trialled), in favour of paper cups. Airlines are responsible for a lot of nasty plastic waste. But I confess, my corporate bulls*** alarm starts ringing loudly when companies claim changes they’re making are motivated by a deep concern for the future of the planet.

As The Independent reported, one passenger on a FlyerTalk forum felt the move was “obviously a cost-saving exercise under the guise of saving the polar bears”. BA cutting down on plastic won’t have much impact on the environment when compared to the vast amount of CO2 its planes pour into our air every single day.

Some may remember those old BA ads, fronted by PJ O’Rourke, extolling the virtues of the BA experience. Food on flights, for example. And yes, I’ve read about what that means on a short-haul trip these days.

It is all quite the contrast to those Middle Eastern airlines that still see giving their customers a little love as a key part of the offer. Maybe you pay a little more. I’d be tempted to do that. But most people aren’t. We, the travelling public, with our enthusiastic embrace of the Ryanair approach, have sent a message to competitors like BA: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.