praa Uummmm, it sounds like you haven't travelled long haul economy for a while? If they go straight to the meal and a drink, that saves one round of free drinks and little packets full of nasty, salty junk (
) and they offer pasta because it's cheaper than meat - and has become fashonable.
I could go on but you've already found that lower fares mean lower service!!
And if you say that you paid full rate, so does that not constitute high fares? The answer is to compare the fare paid for that journey 25 years ago and then adjust for inflation.
Spot on. People love the G&T before dinner routine etc etc..........they're just not willing to pay for it. I used to work for an airline that, in bucket & spade routes, did the "full monty". Newspaper, comp drinks and snack, hot meal, IFE. However, if the semi low cost competitor was as little as £10 cheaper......many opted for the cheaper option. People loved our onboard service, but they didn't particularly value it in monetary terms.
Most western airlines have seen that the travelling public will accept lower standards and have acted on that. The "low cost" model (not really low cost as unless you get the first few tickets advertised at "from £19" or whatever, you end up paying the same as full service airlines after you've paid the booking fee/credit card fee/check-in fee/baggage fee and any other fee that the airline thinks they can get away with. This service is actualy "low overheads" or Low expectations" and the US and European majors think they can get away with it. If you want more, you have to buy a Premium economy or business ticket to get was what standard in the past.
I agree in part but a little unfair on the LCC's. More often than not, the LCC's are cheaper....fact. Occasionally, the full service carriers can be around the same price or fairly close but it's the LCC sector that has made full service more competitive. You can't argue with that. Even when full service are fairly close in price, like in my example above, many will still go for the fare that is ultimately cheaper.
And not all LCC's are "that" bad when it comes to extra's. I don't agree with high card fee's but the only extra that comes close to necassary with some LCC's (notably EZY) is baggage. And many don't even need that.