BA Cheaper than Ryanair

[snooky]

An interesting article in the Mail on Sunday today comparing total as opposed to headline prices at BA, Easyjet and Ryanair. Not perhaps the outcome you would expect.

Travel advice: Cheap air fares in the BA versus budget airlines battle | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2063604/Travel-advice-Cheap-air-fares-BA-versus-budget-airlines-battle.html)

[davidjohnson6]

Looks like a (rather lazy) journalist has seen the "Value Calculator" that BA have been plugging on their website for probably a year, maybe longer, and though "Ooh - I can write an article based on this"

Value Calculator - Ryanair | Easyjet | British Airways (http://www.britishairways.com/travel/value-calculator/public/en_gb)

[PAXboy]

Such old news. The cheapest carrier on a route can easily be calculated on EACH day leading up to departure!" Prices change by the hour on all carriers now.

All carriers - and other commercial companies - see it in their interest to make the pricing as complicated as possible. (Yes, I know they say that it is simple but that is only one-booking enquiry at a time!) If one carrier changes one of the prices, then all calculations must be done again. I could book for Rome today on BA and in 1 minute/hour/month it will be cheaper with someone else.

Which is why you have to book according to your required schedule but don't mention that to hack who might want to do BA a favour. :zzz:

[Hotel Tango]

I have travelled on full service airlines at a cheaper or roughly equal fare to the RYR fare on similar routes. It will vary depending on a variety of factors. I never use RYR (I have my reasons) but I do compare their fares just out of curiousity.

[scotbill]

Which is why you have to book according to your required schedule but don't mention that to hack who might want to do BA a favour.So which part of his analysis is incorrect then? Let's not give way to the good old British sport of knocking BA.

In my experience, BA's fares are often cheaper than Ryanair for families, anyone travelling with luggage - or those who need to be close to the centre of their destination rather than in the vicinity of some peripheral airport.
Ryanair suits the single computer savvy person travelling without baggage. The drip feed build-up in charges takes maximum advantage of those in an increasingly innumerate population who are taken in by the "bargain" headline and fail to realise that the final figure is going to be considerably more.

Even if the fares were identical, I'd take BA any day.

[easyflyer83]

Full service can be as cheap or even cheaper than LCC. The LCC's regardless of individual opinions, have certainly helped full service become more competitive. I personally find however that for every fare that is cheaper on full service, there are more examples of cheaper LCC's.

It can be complicated admittedly. FR charge for check in/printing boarding cards and charge a booking fee per pax where as EZY have free check in and card charge per booking.

[PAXboy]

scotbill Not knocking any carrier. Just lobbing a friendly grenade at journos!

[Torque Tonight]

This old drivel again :ugh:

The problem with this OLD story is that the journos always select an extreme passenger group as their 'typical' example in order to skew the stats and generate the shock headline grabbing result that they are seeking. Last time the Mail trotted this out their calculations were based on two adults and two kids each with two 20kg hold suitcases, a full meal, a round of snacks, several drinks and priority boarding /allocated seating for all.

I have probably travelled as a passenger on locos the best part of 100 times, sometimes commuting, sometimes on business trips and sometimes holiday. I have never bought food or drink on board. I have on only one return trip needed to check in hold luggage (and that was when scuba diving for a week). I have never paid for speedy boarding etc but normally end up with perfectly acceptable seating. I have never bought scratchcards, never bought their travel insurance, never been fined for forgetting my travel documents etc etc. You get the picture.

It's not rocket science. If you use them right, the locos are cheaper, probably hence the name. You only have to look at the customers voting with their wallets and FR's recent profit reports. If however, you are not the kind of person who can travel light, you need to check in a double bass and 5 bags of cement, and then have 12 cans of Carslberg on the way down to the Costas, then maybe you need to choose an airline with a greater inclusive allowance.

[Skipness One Echo]

It's not rocket science. If you use them right, the locos are cheaper, probably hence the name. You only have to look at the customers voting with their wallets and FR's recent profit reports.

I think you mean if you use them "wrong" as using them right involves buying all the stuff you don't. That's where they make money, not so much the "low fares". They're like BAA with wings !

[easyflyer83]

Torque tonight does have a point though. What i sometimes wonder about though is how he (and others) are somewhat triumphant at the fact that they didn't buy anything onboard. Of course, if they didn't want anything then that is fine, after all some of BA's most loyal customers have little more than a glass of water and a tomato juice. However,I guess some people won't buy anything on principle but not sure why.

It would surprise many to know that despite being a successful carrier, Easyjet and others like it make very little profit per seat which is why the model demands hight load factors. By little profit per seat I mean less than a packet of cigarettes. Hence sales are important and perhaps demonstrates just how little we pay for our fares these days.

The onboard sales are not uncommon to many passengers and they weren't exactly pioneered by the LCC's. Of course, for many the LCC was their first experience of scheduled airline service and were used to charter where bar sales, funcards, duty/tax free were all very much the aim of the game.

But remember, many of the LCC flights are pretty short hops where food and drink isn't essential and so if you don't want to eat or drink onboard and can pack wisely then you can make even more savings. I still don't subscribe to the notion that with a bag and the cost of a wine and sandwich onboard takes the cost up on a par with legacy carriers.....most of the time.

Many LCC routes also don't have legacy competition and would probably never see legacy service and this is what many forget. There are many city routes where LCC's are the only option and alot of Europeans still can't get their head around connecting on a short haul basis. As a consequence the LCC's grow their share.

Certainly not a LCC V's Legacy argument as I've experienced both as crew but just my 2 pence worth...again

[Torque Tonight]

I wouldn't say 'triumphant'.

I think for many there is an expectation that an an airline flight must include certain features, that is nothing more than a hangover from the glory days of air travel. Once upon a time getting in a shiny jetliner was an exciting and glamorous event. A restaurant style meal at 30000ft was an event, and the holiday began as soon you boarded the aeroplane.

Times have changed and air travel is far more mundane. The holiday doesn't begin when you board the plane any more than it begins when you get on the bus to get to the station to get on the train to get to the airport. In fact air travel is like a bus: just another form of public transport; sad but true. We have come to expect the traditional service even when it is superfluous (why do we need a meal service on a 2 hour, mid afternoon European shorthaul flight). The locos recognised this, made the extras optional and reduced the base price. The public embraced this.

Most of the complaints come from those who pay the loco ticket price but still expect the legacy service. The full service option is still there if you wish to pay for it so I don't have a great deal of sympathy for these sorts of complaints. If you get on a loco flight with the same attitude as when you get on a bus or a train you'll have few problems.

I may work for a well known budget airline but I am certainly no company spokesman and I see many negatives in the overall business model, but I do see the positives of using the system to enable cheap travel, if you apply a bit of common sense. I have nothing against the legacies and think there is a time and place for full service - my last passenger flight was in Virgin Upper - absolutely fantastic but impossible to justify for routine travel. You pays your money, you takes your choice.*

*or some similar old expression.

In other shock news, it may be cheaper to hire a limo with a free bar than get on a train and buy 40 bottles of champagne and a reserved seat.

[easyflyer83]

Times have changed and air travel is far more mundane. The holiday doesn't begin when you board the plane any more than it begins when you get on the bus to get to the station to get on the train to get to the airport. In fact air travel is like a bus: just another form of public transport; sad but true. We have come to expect the traditional service even when it is superfluous (why do we need a meal service on a 2 hour, mid afternoon European shorthaul flight). The locos recognised this, made the extras optional and reduced the base price. The public embraced this.

On many routes flying is more mundane partly because the airport experience isn't as great as it once was and secondly because we all generally fly more.

I have to say though that for many the holiday very much still starts at the airport and onboard the aircraft. Some of the holiday destinations are where the crew certainly earn their commission. SSH for example is a long day but it's extremely lucrative for crew in terms of flight pay and commission. Generally people buy more because they're on holiday. Although i'm sure many crew will acknowlege that this is a very Northern/Scottish thing. In essence, you can still have everything you had onboard before you just pick and choose what you want and pay accordingly.

Most of the complaints come from those who pay the loco ticket price but still expect the legacy service. The full service option is still there if you wish to pay for it so I don't have a great deal of sympathy for these sorts of complaints. If you get on a loco flight with the same attitude as when you get on a bus or a train you'll have few problems.

Absolutely. The problem is that the average Joe would be very disappointed on a BA flight to ALC etc these days because they get very little onboard service. Of course, LCC isn't just related to onboard service but your average pax thinks it does. Ironically the LCC's probably have better cabin service/selection/choice than BA economy on many of the short sectors. Again you just have to pick and choose accordingly.

I may work for a well known budget airline but I am certainly no company spokesman and I see many negatives in the overall business model

I don't see many negatives in the business model per se. I do however see negatives in the way some LCC's do things........including the one I work for.

[wowzz]

The 'Average Joe' is not very likely to fly BA from London to ALC these days, because he can't ! [Unless he wants a 7 hour trip via Madrid]

[easyflyer83]

I didn't realise they dropped ALC, I do beg your pardon. But the ALC was a typical route where BA competed very well with the LCC's but of course it was marginal for them so no great shakes that it was dropped. You could argue that such legacy routes are not sustainable these days.

[eastern wiseguy]

BA......? Remind me who they are again. Sometimes the LoCo's are the only option.