EasyJet - 4

[fa2fi]

When was the last time you saw a rabbit boarding a plane either?

Ads don't need to make sense. They need to grab your attention, and get the message to the viewer, which this one does.

Look at the Dairy Milk ads, they made no sense whatsoever, but I bet they worked.

[Cozy F]

Agreed. The fact that it is being talked about means they've hit the spot. The white rabbit is no different from the Smash aliens or more contemporary meerkats.

'FRatSTN' - I'm sure you have witnessed the pursuit of publicity by whatever means, no matter how ludicrous, over the years!

[Mr A Tis]

Good grief - they paid for that? Cue another focus group meeting......

[FRatSTN]

But the point I'm making is that the message doesn't come across. It conveys the opposite message to which they are trying to make. My family (who has virtually no knowledge in aviation) saw it first and thought exactly the same.

[racedo]

Think FRatSTN has got the point......

Getting an ad to make a message is the key thing that the company spend their money on, it can be in a variety of ways either by being serious or being funny.

This one fails in at attempt at humour and fails in being serious.

If I was person who paying the bill for this the first question I would ask is
"Is that what I am spending £2-3 million on TV on"

[Skipness One Echo]

It's the Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, surely you get that. "I'm late, I'm late....." I know the guys who did this. I'll have a chat.

[EI-BUD]

Interestingly, the add as per usual protocol comparisons are with BA. That's a fair approach for LGW operations, but on a serious not, with FR at more primary airports, and with good track records with regard to punctuality and price, are easyJet shying away from the elephant in the room?

I'm certainly an easyJet fan, but FR are moving fast and with so many new Boeings in the pipeline, these 2 are going to end up infringing on each other patch more than ever. Enter FR's foray into UK domestics and onto 2 of easyJet's leading STN routes....

[Skipness One Echo]

FR operated against EZY to Glasgow albeit from PIK for well over a decade, there is room for both.

[easyflyer83]

Easyjet sees the legacies as it competition more than FR. Plus, they have been going after the business traveller for quite a while now (the aim of the ad) and generally speaking who does the business traveller fly with? BA or Ryanair?

[RAT 5]

Do you have knowledge/opinion why they went up 60% so fast and then retreated 30% equally quickly?

[FRatSTN]

That's the bit that worries me. EZY don't seem to recognise the competition from FR as much as they should.


Despite what they say, they don't really compete with legacy carriers, they just target their passengers. There's a difference.


As businesses, the legacies are stagnant, inefficient and often loss making in short-haul operations. Why on Earth would EZY compete with that?


They almost don't seem to recognise the real threats, the real competition from the likes of FR, W6 or DY who like EZY have lower cost models than the legacies who can compete more on price and are able to open up more routes in competition with EZY.


They seem to just say they are better than FR because they use primary airports!? If you look at FR, they just slag off the legacy carriers because they recognise that they are of virtually no threat to them. They see EZY as their competition because they are the biggest threat to their business model which is primarily based upon low costs, speed and efficiency.


Personally I think EZY have over emphasised on the business traveller almost to the point where it seems to be cannibalising new products, services and overall growth for leisure passengers. Contradictory to FR who through their business plus and family extra products, are evidently trying to lure both from their competition.


But EZY need to get their act together if they don't see FR as their biggest and most threatening competitor. And crappy TV adverts that don't even really make sense or even that much relation to a business product is certainly not going to help!

[EI-BUD]

FR operated against EZY to Glasgow albeit from PIK for well over a decade,
there is room for both.

Yes this is true Skipness, but my point is more that easyJet makes a comparison with BA while increasingly they are competing with FR in between the same airport pairs. easyJet could in the past have avoiding comparison with FR ex PIK but now it same airports.

At a point in time there were up to 8 rotations on PIK STN by 73S's.. but that was a long time ago, and so much has changed in that time...

While there may be room for both, it is clear that easyJet are moving their STN services away increasingly. ALC has moved to SEN as have others. They are increasingly leaving STN to be the routes where FR will not enter, such as CPH Bilbao etc. So yes there is plenty of room, but easyjet may not like the yield environment up against FR.... we shall see...

[Skipness One Echo]

Despite what they say, they don't really compete with legacy carriers, they just target their passengers. There's a difference.

They really, really do compete with legacy carriers, they took an enormous amount of passengers from exisiting legacy carriers who felt they were being ripped off by BA. At LGW, people stay with BA for Avios and complain about the complete lack of onboard service. Unless a lounge is an absolute for you, a huge amount of the exisiting market uses EZY over BA when spending it's own money, which allows EZY to run a frequent schedule to be attractive to business. What you mean is they don't do connections, however given P2P is a huge part of legacy business and EZY are taking it from them, that's clearly competing.
Your analysis mixed apples with pears.

As businesses, the legacies are stagnant,

Or in terms of KLM and say BA, the short haul operation supports the more profitable long haul, they're co dependent and in good years, the profits roll in. Aviaiton is notoriously loss making btw. When you say stagnant, that does rather ignore the aggresive cost cutting measures BA have taken to put their cabin crew costs into line as near as possible with the market rate. A network carrier will always have big overheads, but they're slightly different business models.
In terms of market placement, Ryanair are still going to be positioning themselves as cheaper than EZY, but moving away from the growth spurt as an ULCC. The business models are moving closer and the overlap will increase but there's still going to be a distincitive place in the market for both. I think this discussion is a little focussed on STN which in terms of EZY alone is the loser out of a LGW/LTN/STN/SEN sandwich.

[FRatSTN]

What you mean is they don't do connections

No, that isn't really what I mean.


What I mean is that EasyJet is not competing with legacy carriers in terms of the business model. When EasyJet first revealed services like the FLEXI fare and allocated seating, it's not changing their model to compete with legacy carriers.


If rolling out those services effected their low-cost model (eg. allocated seating slowed down turnaround times) they would simply not do it. It simply just gives them some extra added value.


EasyJet use this model the give them a cost advantage to then go in and penetrate the markets the legacies operate in (eg. BA at LGW, AF in CDG, KL in AMS) and gain market share through lower costs and lower fares. They don't need to operate connecting flights because as you say, they are able to do it with just P2P passengers and again operating connections would effect (negatively) their low-cost model.


Despite also what they say, they are not the best at opening up markets because as I say, they penetrate markets already well established. This reflects their claim that 75% of their new aircraft deliveries will be used on exiting routes and only 25% for new routes (it isn't made clear if they are exclusively "new" routes or just linking up more of the dots in their current network).


The real competition to EZY is as I say airlines like FR, W6 and DY as they are the ones who operate with similar business models to EZY in the sense that it's based on low costs, speed and efficiency.


FR competes with EZY but not just for passengers and market share, but also in the way that the business works and how it's structured, which is fundamental.


All I'm saying is I think EZY need to recognise that sooner rather than later. At the end of the day, you compete with who poses the most threat to you, and for EZY I don't believe that is the legacy carriers.

[EI-BUD]

rolling out those services effected their low-cost model (eg. allocated seating slowed down turnaround times) they would simply not do it. It simply just gives them some extra added value.

I don't think there is any evidence to support the statement that allocate seating slowed turn. It was introduced alongside an ongoing focus on turn times, and improvements have been made on the turn such as removal of head count on board.

Ref who the competition are; Carolyn has said clearly that Norwegian , Ryanair, Vueling all have lower costs than ezy. No secret. Hence, going after the legacy business and rowing in with slightly lower fares than legacy carriers is a lucrative strategy . My original point was that they compare with the legacies in adverts etc but progressively it is FR they worried about ...

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

When the overcapacity tsunami hits the EU airline market in the near future EZY has an extremely well designed shelter on high ground. Rabbits in adverts won't come into it.


WWW

[FRatSTN]

I don't think there is any evidence to support the statement that allocate seating slowed turn.

EI-BUD, Please read my post carefully. I never said it did.


I said, as an example McCall has used when talking about this, that IF allocated seating slowed turnaround times then they wouldn't be doing it because it would harm the low-cost model.


The fact that they ran the trial and successfully do use allocated seating means that as you say, it hasn't had any significant impact on turnaround times.

[pwalhx]

I travel on business regularly and know a lot of people who do the same. I can state quite categorically that as a business traveller I do compare Easyjet with the legacy carriers and along with many others have moved from the legacies to Easyjet for many flights.

I can also say from the evidence of my conversation with other business travellers they do not perceive Ryanair in the same manner.

Whilst I accept the above is not scientific I personally believe that Easyjet's comparison of themselves in the advert to British Airways is exactly the correct course of action.

Also I actually find the advert quite amusing.

[businessair75]

I travel for work on a reasonably frequent basis using several different carriers. I avoid Ryanair wherever possible but I genuinely enjoy the easyjet product. By no means is it perfect but I believe they have a product that competes favourably with many legacy carriers. Ok, you might not get your free scotch but the service is pretty good and their crews are, on the most part, genuinely very friendly.


Anecdotally, there seems to be a lot of surprise at how good Easyjet are when I've come across first timer flyers of the airline, you never really get that at Ryanair......not always complaints but a hell of a lot of indifference. Amongst a lot of business travellers, my colleagues particularly, there does seem to be a certain affection of easy if not a degree of loyalty. That's pretty hard to achieve in this business and in todays climate.


I compare Easy to BA and Lufty. I can't say the same for Ryanair.

[Mr A Tis]

You might compare EZY to BA ex LGW with 40+ aircraft based there. However, up North at MAN, at best you have one flight a day up against multiple daily departures by LH, LX. KL & AF.
The vast majority of the pax using the legacies ex MAN are interlining. I still view EZY up north as a bucket & spade operator & their competition here is Jet2, Ryanair & Monarch.
Maybe one day, one of the major locos would offer interlining ? Something that SouthWest has done very successfully in the USA.
As for the pesky wabbit.....more pointless than timeless.