On the Plunge in Demand for No-Frills Travel ...
It is very easy to pick out certain obvious explanations for the current demand weakness afflicting products such as those offered by Ryanair. Government taxes, airport development fees, security hassles, environmental impact concerns, worries about the economy/unemployment, actual reduction in personal incomes, and so on. But I would suggest that the high awareness of these particular factors (and I would not wish to underplay their importance in any way) is obscuring another major reason for the drop in demand.
Companies such as Ryanair attract significant 'VFR' [Visiting Friends & Relations] traffic (which should hold up), a healthy proportion of the (declining) migrant workers market, and afew business travelers. But a key proportion of the sector is comprised of people who travel purely for leisure: to enjoy a holiday, whether in the form of a short break or two weeks in the Med. The crucial factor here is that the customers must actually ENJOY the travel experience if they are to become a reliable source of repeat business. These trips are discretionary and that has become a real problem.
Increasingly, customers are NOT ENJOYING their short break / vacation experience when traveling with no-frills carriers. Rightly or wrongly, they feel hacked off / cheated by the booking process with large hidden charges appearing at all stages, and devious website tricks which insert insurance, baggage and seat selection charges (which have to be individually deselected again). Then come the shocking credit card charges (per person)! At check-in (another fee) they face confrontation instead of the friendly welcome of years past. Service with a snarl, more charges for excess/outsize baggage (at usurious rates), and a 'fine' for forgetting to print a boarding card etc. We could argue that these charges are avoidable and the passengers "should have known", and that all is fair. But the customers' opinion is unequivocal: "We've just been ripped off ... big time!"
Next they must endure the treat that is 2009 airport security. Queues, resealable plastic bags (£1 each, please!), shoe x-rays, searches, confiscations of shampoo/toothpaste etc (which the passengers perceive as utterly ridiculous). So they arrive - stressed and harassed - in the departure lounge. Perhaps they then nip into an airport shop to purchase a gift or a snack for their flight. Then to gate.
More confrontation therapy. The gift/snack you bought doesn't fit within your one bag! Leave it behind or pay a punitive fee for your bag to be stowed in the hold. Then finally they can join the rugby-scrum boarding experience for those knee-shredding seats! And if they're really lucky - having paid £10 extra to be in the first 90 passengers to board (!!!!!), they may find themselves crushed at the back of a standing-room only bus to a remote stand, co-mingling with their more tight-walleted brethren. Then all they have to cope with is the relentless noise pollution onboard with those childish announcements and irritating commercials.
We in the industry can - and on these discussion boards, often do - justify all these components. Well its cheap, after all (or is it?). But what the customer takes away is the memory of a DEEPLY UNPLEASANT experience. And this travel was purchased as part of a *FUN* weekend away?
The industry must accept that a significant proportion of the travelers who have experienced all this are simply not coming back. Many people I know who have healthy salaries, no economic worries and high disposable incomes are telling me exactly this: they no longer enjoy the short-break holiday by air (and have stopped buying). They are opting for upmarket hotels in the UK, or ferry/Eurostar based trips. And they are LIKING what they have found / re-discovered.
The Ryanair model has been so successful in attracting travelers in the past based purely on the lowest displayed price that most of their major competitors have been forced (or willingly chose) to adopt the same practices. Whether it is BMI Baby, FlyBe, EasyJet, Jet2, hey - even Monarch, these insidious hidden charges and check-in confrontations now prevail across the board. Many key leisure routes no longer offer any quality choice which more affluent customers consider civilised. They aren't compelled to purchase travel (some property-owners excepted) - so just maybe they won't bother. Why book a 'pleasure' trip which is a source of fear, hassle and apprehension? Gone are the days of "looking forward" to the hols.
"Weekend in Prague, Dear?"
"Hell, no thanks. Let's just go back to that nice hotel we found in the Lake District!"
It isn't just the economy which is grounding all those 737's.
All comments and observations welcome. SHED.