What the public needs are capable, highly trained, motivated, well rested airline professionals at the sharp end of a 100 tonne jet with souls on board, the only question is whether they are prepared to pay for them.
So if the oil price is going up you should be happy to be paying increased ticket prices for your flights to Spain, instead of trying to fund your cheap flights with airlines out of pilot’s pockets. When will the consumer take responsibility for produce and products costing a certain amount of money and not living in a false economy of under valuation?
Well, as an occasional "consumer" of the "product" produced by EI, I have to wonder: just who is this "public" that thinks only of ticket price above all other considerations? Has anyone actually asked them what they want?
The last time I flew RyanAir was about 3 years ago, and the difference in price to London was huge - far more than any difference in salaries could account for. Other times before that, it was because they went places no-one else went direct e.g. Dublin-Aberdeen.
My point is: it takes more than a minor variation in price to make someone choose one over the other. You can't judge what people want solely by what they do (the airline they fly on): it's not an A/B decision on cost alone, and people have to make do with what's actually available.
Safety concerns, bizarre daily price variations, poor transport links, delays due to poor planning (yes, we can tell when turnaround times are unrealistic), and the total trip cost, all come in to it. So what if the basic flight prices went up by 20% to keep staff happy? That would be near-invisible under the added cost of landing at a remote airport, or those bloody "fuel surcharges" that only serve to confuse customers. (You think we don't know that fuel is a major cost in running a plane, and that fuel prices have gone up?
)
You're all too busy competing on "headline price" to notice that customers are unhappy with the whole experience of planning, booking, and taking a trip that includes a flight. I don't accept the charge that "the public" are in any way responsible for this mess, and looking down your nose at the "consumer" is, to be blunt, delusional. And now you want to punish "us" for poor airline management? (Anyone got P&O Stena's number?)
Rant over. How much worse would it be if I actually had a trip to take soon?
