What is going on with the airline business?

[flaps to 60]

What the hell is going on

What the hell is going on with our industry?

I have been reading the many post across many of the forums and have to admit to being sad and angry with the way its going.

We have FR theatning its pilots if the join a union but unions in BA striking for what, who really knows?

We have bus drivers who dont want to drive, cabin crew looking down on the pilots, customer service people who dont want to serve, airlines cutting everything to the bone so we cant get cup of coffee at 6am.

Airports that are more interested in selling leather handbags than looking after its main source of income, tossers flying planes into building, the press trying to scare everybody into not flying and the whole thing just goes round and round.

I could go on for ages but i think its time to STOP take a breath and try to work together to put this industry back where it was ie once proud and booming.

The likes of MOL has put us back decades its time to TALK TOGETHER ladies and gents rather than whisper in dark corners.

[ramsrc]

Not just Aviation...

Sadly, it's a sign of the times.

[Captain Mercurius]

Yeap.

B..h and friends, times !

[lomapaseo]

Nothing has changed, just the information exchange is now much broader using the internet.

[Dixons Cider]

Good call there Flaps.
I agree, its going downhill rapidly, and coincidentally the spiral got worse at the time of the boom in the LCC sector, yet they have created many valuable jobs.

Time to talk together? Maybe, but the problem is and always has been that we are basically a bunch of greedy barstards and there is always someone out there willing to undercut to get their foot on the next rung of the ladder. cant blame them really.

Dixon has spoken

[Fester T Adams]

The likes of MOL has put us back decades

In many ways that's true but for many years pax & I've no doubt aviation personnel saw him as a godsend. For years travelling by aircraft was seen as a luxury, priced exorbitantly out of the range of the average wage earning Joe Soap in the street. It was regarded as such a rarity & an occasion to fly people used to turn up in all thier Sunday best & finery for the occasion.

But MOL changed all that, he opened up aviation for the masses, suddenly almost anyone could whiz around Europe at the drop of a hat to see wonderful exotic places they'd only dreamt about or read the name on a map, visit relations or escape from relations whatever the case may be. He forced other airlines to drop their rip off over exorbitant prices & singlehandedly knocked the fallacy on the head that aviation should be exculsive & only be for the very lucky rich few. He saved an airline that was on its last struggling legs from going to the wall & created thousands of jobs, many in depressed regions. He shook up a badly needed to be shook up aviation industry.

Am I defending MOL, NO!

Even I can see he has overstepped the mark & that much of his present progress is done on the backs of his employees & to an extent pax with dubious management strategies which are no doubt having detrimental knock on affects right through other airlines in terms of employee rights, conditions & pay. He has done this so much so that the word has filtered down to his customers & some are deciding on ethical grounds not to fly with his airline. But without him Europeans would not have the cheap prices & freedom to travel that they have today.

All I'm saying is that your statement isn't entirely factual & there are two sides to the coin.

[Avman]

But our traffic figures keep going up

[nautique]

The public perception of the aviation industry nowadays is that the they expect to be able to travel around Europe or cross the Atlantic and are only prepared to pay peanuts, otherwise they feel they are bieng ripped off.

However, at the same time the public demands the highest safety standards, whether it be from the engineers or the pilots and everyone else involved in making the 'whole' journey happen, is quick to complain and yet those same people will happily jump into a taxi, frequently of the most dubious standards and pay £50 or so for a very short journey.

Wages are being driven down across the aviation industry, workers are being forced to live further and further away from the airports because of spiralling housing costs close to the airports, fatigue sets in with the longer hours compounded by the extra commuting coupled with the ever increasing working hours and we, the crews contiue to accept working weeks up to 55 hours or more whereas other professions seem to quiblle about a 35 hour week after which they demand overtime.

I agree that great strides have been made in opening avaition but the less people pay the more they demand and the more they complain. The aviation industry needs to re-educate the public about its expectations and reset the standards and expectations.

[chikenscanfly]

RE-Education

nautique,

most valid points for a long long time...

Unfortunately the public tend to believe what the press says on TV...
and so far they seem to like to exclude the crew unless the incident warrants that catch-phrase of theirs, pilot error.

The media likes to simplify things - make things simple, and its easier to prove your point or make it valid.

Time for those "aviation experts" called in for live interviews to start defending their own backyard instead of bending over and agreeing with the reporters for their 5 seconds of fame and even shorter period of rewards. Time we flight and cabin crew make the public more aware of the importance of our responsibilities, and that we are highly trained and specialised.

Time the public realise to what extent we have yielded, in working longer to taking more heat from the top, to help airlines offer them lower fares.

Its time an appreciation comes back from them, and in the end its up to us to drive these points home.

Fly safe guys, at all times. Make the PAs, use the technobabble with explanations, be their crew. Show them you appreciate their coming onboard with you, and that you and everyone flying alongside you up there has nothing but the utmost care and concern for their safety...

maybe then theyll begin to understand and appreciate us...

because management aint gonna do it for us.

[flaps to 60]

It would appear that most airlines and associated industry are all following one principle which is to chase share value.

As long as the investors are happy then most "bad" behavoiur by CEO,COO's etc etc will be tolerated.

Yield is down load factors down a generally unhappy workforce and clientele but who cares as long as share value is up at the expense of customer loyalty and satisfaction. When the Dot Com bubble started to expand i remember thinking it cant last. "It's the business of the future" i was told...It's the way forward. Just like LC and I can see it going the same way

Fester

You mentioned that many are on "ethical" grounds choosing not to fly FR, Im one of them and not just because he is treating his staff and customers badly but because in the real world LC is just a myth as there is always a cost somewhere its just smoke and mirrors and clever accounting.

On the other hand you are also correct in that he has done much for the industry in providing jobs and well paid ones at that but again someone has to pay for it in the long run.

Some of the pay off is what my original post was about. Our industry has been devalued greatly in part by LC inspite of the benefits in increased employment.

Chicken

You are right about the press and their constant onslaught on this fragile industry. The stories have been well documented in these forums and it sickens me to the back teeth when i read yet another "journo gets past security with knife" story. Its time our management pressed charges and had these scum put where they are afraid to pick up a £10 note.

It's also time David Learmonts "break out in emergency" glass box was made shatter proof.

My sadness is in the corners in which we have all hidden in and let the management take the piss with OUR lives in favour of share prices and keeping the big investors happy. Any manager worth his salt will know the obvious and unfortunately they are few and far between.

Its not time to fight but time to start the change where you can say again im proud to be a Pilot, Cabin Crew, Engineer, PSA, Crew Transort Driver, Cleaner, ATC, Despatcher, etc etc etc.

How we do this i dont know but one thing is for sure is that we have to stop bitching and start aiming higher. Any ideas or am i just being nieve. I love my job but i want to feel proud of my industry.

United we stand divided etc etc

[colegate]

nautique- I like what you have posted. But O'Leary is by no means the first person to have made those sorts of promises to the travelling public. Remember Freddie Laker. Remember what happened to his airline when competition was unleashed largely by the US government. When competion was unleashed the public did not just wany low prices anymore. They wanted whatever they could get. Low prices and service became the requirement. That is why Laker's Skytrain had to turn itself into a full service airline. But when it did so it found that the public was not prepared to pay anymore than it had paid for no service.

People Express in America was a notable failure in the low fares, no frills market. They took no notice of their public who eventually got fed up with the rubbish service they got.

At the moment Ryanair have a very strong product plus which compensates for anything else and that is excellent schedule integrity. Low fares and schedule integrity will be a surviving formula. Lose one or the other and there will be serious problems.

Read today's Daily Telegraph (if you are British) and you will see waht the public think of Ryanair.

[Fester T Adams]

in the real world LC is just a myth as there is always a cost somewhere its just smoke and mirrors and clever accounting.

Well I partly disagree with this & partly agree. Up to recently low cost in my country anyway was far from a myth compared to the other options I had. I've done very well & got to see many wonderful places out of FR's low cost policies thank you & they did live up to the promise of being low cost.

But now that competitive formerly full cost airlines have joined the fray & started to drive down their prices & increase routes to compete if not fully match with FR the scene is beginning to change.

Can I get a direct flight to the same or a close destination with a FR competitor without having to invariably connect at fog bound & therefore not totally reliable Stansted with no recompense if my flights are screwed up to circumstances beyond my control & the stress, worry, time, extra taxes, landing charges that this entails.

What are the extra charges & time to get to my destination from some out of the way airport rather than a more central convenient, notice how exorbitant the Stansted Express has become rather than a mere tube ride from LHR.

As FR think up of more cost saving devices the list will increase, should I want to bring hold luggage for example, how much will this add to my costs.

One thing sure with full cost airlines now having to follow the low costs costcutting to survive, the face of aviation for both employee & pax has & will continue to change forever. Gone is much of the exclusitivity, cossetting & pampering of old of staff & pax alike, in has come a dog eat dog world where only the fittest, leanest & most clever will survive, it only stands to reason that somebody unfortunately has to pay the price for this!

[Wake Turbulence]

As a long time business traveller I think there is a major piece of the puzzle that many people overlook in bemoaning the state of the airline biz. Namely, how the US majors and others shot themselves in the foot by eliminating travel agency percentage commissions.

Travel agencies used to dominate business travel ticket sales, and by virtue of their 10% off the top commission had ample incentive to encourage their customers to buy more expensive (e.g., fully flexible) tickets and I can assure you they routinely did so. Enjoying this naive customer behavior, airlines ratcheted up flexible ticket prices to ludicrous levels, e.g., 10X the lowest economy fare. This not only provided an inviting price umbrella for LCCs to come in under, far worse it set up a house of cards in terms of business purchaser behavior.

I think airline managements BADLY misjudged the twin wallops of the internet (eliminated all ability to conceal information about fares, availability and competitors' pricing/inventory) and the unintended consequences of cutting out travel agents from the picture (capping comm's at $25 or whatever it is). Business travellers woke up and realized there was no purpose or benefit to paying $2,500+ return for a flexible Y ticket, say, JFK-LAX, when a $300 one would accomplish the same purpose. With no travel agent to promote high fare tickets and/or conceal the availability of cheap fares (or to poo-poo them as if no self-respecting business traveller would buy one), businesses have en masse moved away from so-called "extortion" fares.

The entire economic structure that was being supported by extortion fares is gone. Airplane leases, industry wages and all other economic rents to the factors of producing air travel simply cannot be sustained at former levels. Sad but true.

[shafted@work]

the future

The industry is in turmoil but the consolidation has started. On a worldwide average basis people are not paying enough for their tickets, therefore airlines will go bust until they do.

The combination of LCC and 9/11 was just a catalyst for what was always going to happen.

Now we are seeing deregulation in europe and a reduction in state aid, LCC costs rising and Full frills costs coming down.

I believe we will end up with a couple of mega alliances and a handfull of LCC's scattered around. There will be higher fares on all flights.

Who will survive?? survival of the leanest. I think the small LCC's will be swallowed up on their way out by the big ones, and then the LCC with the lowest cost base will win. When they do they will up their prices.
The full frills will benefit if they are part of the big alliances.

IMHO

[2Infinity&beyond]

The lcc's in Europe have not been following the success story of South West to its bare details. The Southwest management were pioneers in what they did, and they made money, and still make money because they set out to provide a good product for a good price. They have good people working for them, and day in and day out they provide good service for a good price, by keeping their cost lbase at a low level.
The European counterparts, although with the benefit of a 20 year history of lcc in USA have not copied their mentors because they did not set out to provide the service needed in the European Market. They set out to make money, and not provide a good product. You can make money, and lots of it if you have a good product, but you will not necessarily make money if that is your only goal.
IMHO the unnamed Irish airline I work for has lost the plot, and is in a vicious cycle they created themselves. Low quality product requiing a low price, low yielding passengers, further lowering of quality to attract pax, by lowering prices, and further errosion of a good customer base, because at some point pax had enough of a bad product, and the only pax you attract are those that cannot afford to spend money on the airplane. The pax figures may be up for the unnamed Irish company, but our yields are down, the average spending on the aircraft is way down, and at present and in the near future we will be making money only from anciliaries and not our core business.

[Thunderball 2]

A historical footnote

Worth remembering that back in '95 it was Stelios, not MOL, who introduced the Low Cost revolution. I was intimately involved as a bit-part player in the start of Easyjet, and I can assure you that there was no question of EZY being seen as a competitor to Ryanair at that time. "Who's Ryanair?" would have been the general reaction from most people when Easy started flying in November 1995. Easyjet showed MOL the way in many respects; EZY was the champion of direct sell when Ryanair were selling through the trade.

That having been said, those who would direct all their vitriol towards MOL in relation to his relentless cost-control compaign are sadly misguided. Someone's said it in this thread already; the short-haul aviation sector was a disaster waiting to happen by the time EZY and MOL got stuck in back in the late '90s. The more entrenched the old order, the more extreme and the more damaging the backlash when the revolution comes. Think of the Shah of Iran; the inevitable antidote to his excesses was Ayatollah Khomeni!

If you want to blame anyone don't blame MOL or the global pilot force. Blame mainstream airline management for being so slow to grasp the fact that aviation cannot insulate itself from the pressures of competition - even using cartel tactics - any better than any other industry.

[averytdeaconharry]

In my view the last three postings get right to the heart of the problems of airlines in Europe. But there are a few comments that I would like to add.

Shafted@work- I think you overstate the value of alliances. My onservations of them (which include managing some key elements of one) are that they are a gross waste of management and company time. The costs are high and the benefits illusory. When the going gets really tough the first thing that airlines seem to do is get out of those alliances. They are of little interest to customers. I think that under increasing competition they will fade away. If Rod Eddington were to ask hard questions of his alliance managers he would learn that going to junkey meetings in exotic places was an important part of their agendas.

2 infinity& beyond. You are absolutely right about product quality. Does Ryanair ever publish the number of complaints it receives direct from the public? I think it is quite simple. If you do not care about your customers they will not care about you. MOL does not care about his shareholders so is it likely that he cares about his customers? If he does not they will start to go someplace else.

Thunderball 2. I think the best thing that EZY did was to go to direct phone and then Internet distribution. That is by far the biggest cost reduction that they have been able to make. Prior to thr Internet all aspirant carriers were held to ransom by travel agents usually through the cancer of override commission. If you look at CAA financial statistics for the period 1980-1993 you will see that carriers like BCAL, Air Europe, Dan Air British Midland etc had to pay commissions of around 20-23% to get their products sold. That eliminated any flexibility that they had. EZY did a great job finding an alternative to that nonsense.

[CarltonBrowne the FO]

The first UK airline to sell tickets over the internet was British Midland... it's a shame they did not realise at the time what a coup this was.

[Flightmapping]

averytdeaconharry,

The rest of my post got lost, but yes FR do publish punctuality figures, levels of complaints and lost baggage on their website, and regularly have a better performance than airlines like BA.

[flaps to 60]

Flightmapping

Are they official figures or ones generated by FR?