-" but duty of care extends to customers who are in your premises or using you product or service. The only thing forcing any company to look after its customers outside the bounds of warranties/contracts (like the Ts&Cs most passengers agree to but don't read) is retention of market share (goodwill)."
The idea of what you get for given what you pay has many shades of grey, particularly for airlines where prices vary enormously for seats on the same flight, people are used to discounts, and there is no consistent set of price-quality tradeoffs.
Regarding terms and conditions, given all airlines have them, and all of them protect the airline to a fair degree, that Tiger had them would not signal to customers that the level of support offered with a problem will be minimal. We all have seen firms offer T&C which are not enforced and most people are used to that.
For someone flying an LCC I would firstly see a $40 fare as being either a promotional offer aimed to get me to use the new airline and gain long term market share or a sale on seats that would elsewise go empty.
Second for most customers who ask why a fare is cheap they will expect it to come from reduced ammenity levels such as seat pitch, no free food, no airbridge etc; this would be consistent with how the LCC market themselves and their ability to drive down costs. I have never seen a CEO of an LCC say they deliver a cheaper product due to low punctuality (as opposed to low support when punctuality is absent which I have seen).
If the customer gave any though to punctuality they may accept planes being later by an hour or even two than on a full service airline, but they would still expect a plane to eventually show up on the day.
I find it unfair that an LCC can hold a customer to a 30 or 45 min checkin dealine and no refunds for cancellations if the customer cancels; while simulataneously not holding itself to either eventually deliverying a flight or making things right.
While the T&C may allow an airline to offer only a refund for a last minute flight cancellation, it is hard to think customers would buy a ticket envisaging this as a likely last minute outcome. If it was an expected outcome you would have to ask why the industry sells tickets in advance. Even if the fare was cheap the customers did pay for a flight.
A lot of T&Cs give the airline flexiblity to change flight times, and I have seen airlines use this to justify putting me onto a later flight (due to MX and a lack of LAME at the airport to fix the problem) without compensation ie the fare was only for carriage from A to B on the day and not a guarantee of flight time. However this argument is quite at odds with the fact I paid a premium for a morning rather than a midday flight ie the premium was paid on the promise and expectation of a morning flight which was not delivered.
Last edited by windytown; 8th Dec 2007 at 08:31.