What I'd like from a low cost Long Haul flight, PPRuNe Airlines

[L'aviateur]

Standard Long Haul Economy

Bottled Water in the seat back on boarding
All seating to be of similar pitch and recline to the extra legroom seating in KLM
No meal, just the availability of complimentary sandwiches and snacks throughout the flight.
Free Soft Drinks, Beer and Wine only. All other drinks chargeable
Simple In Flight Entertainment
Ability to choose seat when booking, at a fee, including emergency exit seats.
Ability to change booking online
Checkin online.
Lights to be dimmed shortly after departure, and not disturbed until arrival, cabin crew pass around with sandwiches occasionally.
Toilets cleaned regularly
cabin crew pass through regularly to collect trash
Hold baggage as an optional, chargable extra.
Standard sized cabin bag allowed upto 15kg.Long Haul Premium

Comfortable lie flat seating, nothing else fancy, just the ability to lie COMPLETELY flat.
Warm meal available immediately after takeoff and shortly before landing but as an added extra cost, booked before the flight.
Sandwiches and snacks throughout the flight.
Priority Boarding
Additional hand baggage allowance.
Free soft drinks, beer, wine and limited selection of spirits. Champagne etc chargeable.Frequent Fliers


Priority Boarding for Silver frequent fliers, and option to use biz class checkin desk.
Priority Fasttrack Security channel for Gold frequent fliers.


Lounge Access to be a chargable extra.

The website to provide clear prices including tax in the first instance, all prices to appear on search engines etc.

[ChicoG]

The website to provide clear prices including tax in the first instance, all prices to appear on search engines etc.

Amen to this one - I'm sick and fed up of airlines quoting their "fantastic special low fares" only to find that, by the time you add in the extras, they are definitely fantastic and special and most certainly not low!

:ugh:

[Evanelpus]

Standard Long Haul Economy

* Bottled Water in the seat back on boarding
* All seating to be of similar pitch and recline to the extra legroom seating in KLM
* No meal, just the availability of complimentary sandwiches and snacks throughout the flight.
* Free Soft Drinks, Beer and Wine only. All other drinks chargeable
* Simple In Flight Entertainment
* Ability to choose seat when booking, at a fee, including emergency exit seats.
* Ability to change booking online
* Checkin online.
* Lights to be dimmed shortly after departure, and not disturbed until arrival, cabin crew pass around with sandwiches occasionally.
* Toilets cleaned regularly
* cabin crew pass through regularly to collect trash
* Hold baggage as an optional, chargable extra.
* Standard sized cabin bag allowed upto 15kg.

This is what you expect for low cost long haul economy? You don't even get this now with some airlines and they aint loco. Did you eat a lot of cheese last night?

[sprthompson]

Priority BoardingI've never understood why this matters to people? I'd rather spend as little time squashed in my seat as possible. Priority disembarkation would be good.

[dubh12000]

Air Berlin actually tick a fair few of those boxes.

[L'aviateur]

sprthomson; on some of the asian flights, if your in economy and you don't get on first, you'll find no room for you hand baggage, you'll be given a tag and hope to see your bag on the conveyor belt at the final destination. This is a pain if your travelling with hand baggage only and time a the destination is limited and valuable.

Evanelpus; expect? No, Want? YES :-)

[Global Warrior]

Preferably, both pilots to have reached puberty!!!!

[Ancient Observer]

My biggest moan is that "upgrades" go to crew First, and only to pax as an afterthought, if they really have to.
Qantas are worst at this, with BA close behind.

[Der absolute Hammer]

Priority boarding matter, I think, even today with he reduced hand baggage, so that one can stow the carry on in the rack. Everyone now seems to travel with a bag maxed out to limits.

[kenhughes]

My wish list:


A flight that departs on time
A flight that arrives on time, or a little bit early
Decent IFE
Pilots that don't insist on telling me what the weather's going to be like at my destination, half way through a movie, as I'm travelling onwards from the destination and couldn't care less what the weather's like there.


That will do it for me.

[Load Toad]

Safety
A good size comfy seat, that I can sleep in (a bit of recline and a good head rest will do)
Reliability
Water / soft drinks
Decent IFE
A quiet, restful cabin
Window seat

I'll bring along a few bacon sarnies and a 2L box of wine to keep me happy for the rest of the flight.

[Der absolute Hammer]

One 1.5litre bottle of water handed to each passenger at the gate. Must be presented on boarding with boarding pass.
I packet of K rations ditto including refuse bag.
No food or drink catered on board.
No duty free service on board.
Refuse collection during flight.
Bottles of water available to be sold on board at €5 per small bottle. Not flavoured, not sparkle, just water!
Cabin crew on board as safety crew.
KLM comfort seat leg room as a minimum and prefer sleeper seats.
More toilets and ones that one can stand up in.
A reduction in size of cabin baggage permitted. Two pieces to a total of one dimension.
Removal of the child seat price concession, one pax, any age= one seat, no babes in arms.

[TightSlot]

What a fascinating thread! It will be really interesting to see where this one goes.

For me, one thing stands out.

The perception of what makes a 'Good' flight is highly variable. Were all of you to be confined in one cabin, it would be impossible to meet the requirements of everybody. A good example is the use of the PA system: Some love, some loathe and some live somewhere in between. I also noted the use of the term 'Decent' IFE - the problem is that a definition of 'decent' is a massive variable. And of course, there will be differing expectations of the fare to be paid for all of the above.

What would interest me would be to note the ideas that are more or less common to all?

[Gonzo]

Interesting to note that someone above asks for the flight to both depart and arrive on time.

Given the slack in most schedules, if a flight departs on time, it will usually arrive early.

I actually don't care when a flight departs, as long as it lands on schedule. From an airline/air traffic control/airport operations point of view, the passenger fixation on an on-time departure is actually detrimental to efficient operations.

[Load Toad]

By 'decent' IFE I mean one that works rather than one that doesn't hang, freeze, have to be rebooted etc.
I don't need a million filums and TV channels and radio and on demand music - the choice doesn't have to be that huge but also FFS don't have highly censored versions of stuff on either.
And for gods sake don't let people use mobile phones.

[Rusland 17]

One 1.5litre bottle of water handed to each passenger at the gate. Must be presented on boarding with boarding pass.Why?

Most passengers seem to struggle with the amount of hand luggage and duty-free they already carry, without insisting that they carry and present one and a half kilos of water upon boarding as well.

[Der absolute Hammer]

So that the crew can be certain that each passenger, regardless of age has its own bottle of water and cannot then moan and whinge about having left it in the departure lounge ans this make a nuisance of themselves.
Strict adherence to the two pieces of baggage including the requirement that this applies even if you have duty free would make sure there were no proiblems. In other words, if you buy duty free, it forms part of your carry on two piece allowance, so reconcile it as necessary.
Use of mobile telephone once past the departure gate to be met with strict application of Sharia law and of course, off loaded before such application.

[Rusland 17]

So that the crew can be certain that each passenger, regardless of age has its own bottle of water and cannot then moan and whinge about having left it in the departure lounge ans this make a nuisance of themselves.Wouldn't it be easier just to hand out bottles of water once the passengers are on board and seated? Or - and I realise that this may be a little radical - to pass through the cabin every 30 minutes or so with little cups of cold water for those passengers who want them?

[L'aviateur]

Thats why I mentioned the water in the seat backs, like with Finnair. Definately something appreciated.

[radeng]

For me, IFE restricted to the moving route map - in English (BA note!), and leaving out such places as Stansted (Kent, population a few hundred). In business, the booze and the water and meals, a comfortable seat - flatbed on long haul - adequate duty free. There's rarely any whisky left on BA flights back from Geneva. Never find the in flight magazines of much interest, especially since High Life stopped having the monthly article about a/c fleet and interviews with flight crew. Diabetic meals that are not usually chicken or something masquerading as chicken - it's often hard to tell.

[Rusland 17]

For me, IFE restricted to the moving route map - in English...This thread is becoming increasingly bizarre.

Why should the IFE be restricted to the route map? No-one is going to force you to watch movies, but other passengers might like to do so to while away a 10-hour journey.

And why should the map only be in English?

[david.craig]

The only purpose i can imagine to this would be the glare/light from your neighbours seat on a nightflight, however, the map would emit as much light as a movie? Unless of course, you just like a nosey!

[Rusland 17]

In a low-cost operation, the moving map could be replaced by a map in the in-flight magazine showing the aircraft's anticipated position at 30-minute intervals.

After all, long-haul low-cost is going to have to be a rock-bottom, no-frills experience because almost the entire cost of a long-haul flight these days is accounted for by taxes, charges and the cost of fuel. The suggestions above for "good-size, comfy seats" with generous legroom, free wine and beer and more toilets (which will reduce the number of seats) are pure fantasy: even legacy airlines cannot offer this any more.

The airlines know that many (most) people these days choose their airline purely on cost and will willingly forego facilities, frills and customer service in order to shave a couple of euros off the cost. I would therefore expect such an operation to involve:

Flights to and from remote airfields with minimal facilities, involving a lengthy road journey to your final destination.
Seats packed even more closely together than they are currently in long-haul cattle class.
Charging for seat selection and baggage.
Charging for everything consumed on board, whether it be food, drink or entertainment.
Inflight games, e-mail, internet and telephone calls at extortionate cost.
And even then, I doubt that it would trim more than £50-100 off the cost of a long-haul flight.

[radeng]

Rusland

The thread title is 'what I want', and the only IFE I want is the moving map. I'm not even too bothered about that. As for names in English, it is bizarre to only have the names of English (and even more so, Welsh) towns in Spanish, as happens on occasion.

The rest depends on what you mean by 'low cost'.

You could argue that costs have dropped remarkably on legacy airlines. My first Business Class trip to Chicago in 1980 cost £1700 return. A similar trip now is around £6600 - just under 4 times as much. Salaries have gone up by much more than 4 times in the last 30 years - even working half time, my salary is still 5 times what it was then.

I guess that i'm unusual in that I'm prepared to pay for comfort, and not go chasing every penny. If I can't go in comfort, I don't go. I've done more than enough miles as pax on business in the last thirty years that flying to foreign countries has no great attraction for me any longer.

[Niallo]

Zoom Airlines Canada had it right for a low cost long haul carrier. Their 767s were comfortably equipped and smart. In particular they had a large premium cabin using regular seats with increased pitch; all you really need to be comfortable. No frills, just good service at a good price. Bottled water supplied. Excellent WEB site for booking and seat selection.
They provided a good service between Canada and the UK, especially to regional UK airports. I miss them!

[TightSlot]

Niallo - Just for the sake of a discussion - Zoom went under: Does this tell us something about the business model and the facilities that you mention?

For everybody: Bottled water comes at a cost - not just the item cost, but the cost of loading it also, and of course the cost in fuel of carrying it on every flight. I'm not trying to rule it out, just to remind that there is a cost, which would probably be anathema to a low-cost operation.

IFE is a cost item to the airline: The weight of the servers, wiring loom and screens are surprisingly high, and therefore burn fuel. The payments to the content providers are also quite high. An aircraft purchased without IFE fitted might suffer at time of re-sale, and it might be difficult to find an aircraft without IFE fitted in the first place - unless you're going long-haul on something like a 757-200/300 or 737-800.

Duty Free sales subsidise the seat cost: Dumping sales affects the seat price.

I entirely understand why you might want these, and all the other stuff - The OP was asking about a 'Low-Cost' Long-Haul Airline, and most of the suggestions made seem at first sight to fly in the face of the Low-Cost model.

[Mr Optimistic]

...begining to sound like the wife. Well, except as stowable hand luggage. Oh, and no hand luggage - that's what the hold is for.

[PAXboy]

TSThe OP was asking about a 'Low-Cost' Long-Haul Airline, and most of the suggestions made seem at first sight to fly in the face of the Low-Cost model.Indeed, including most of what the OP stated in their OP!!!

The next major move in the airline world is to claw it back to being profitable. That means consolidation of the old players into the new ones and other oldies seeking comfort with each other. If they get it right then they can drag prices back up. THEN there is an opportunity for a low cost LH model to be tried. Except that it has been tried before . Mostly, what works is the middle ground with a carrier having, 2, 3 or 4 class a/c to the same destination. The all-cheap and all-expensive work in only narrow circumstances.

Perhaps some of the carriers that fail will try to do LoCo in LH but I doubt it because, once they fail, the a/c are in the control of the financing companies and they make the decisions.