baby paying for Severn Bridge tolls

[jabird]

I was reading something earlier on the baby website about them paying for the Severn Bridge tolls by offering a refund on parking at CWL. Nothing more on the CWL website about this.

Is the scheme still going - it seems quite innovative?

[FEBA]

Is bribery the only way of encouraging people to go to Wales?

[TwinAisle]

Absolutely not - but it was a great way of encouraging the English to abandon easyJet at BRS and use baby at CWL!

The logic is great - pitch up for your baby flight with a Severn Bridge receipt, get the money off the car park. Best bit is, easy can't do it - you don't pay going into England (supply and demand I guess ;) ) - so no receipt and no refund.

Not sure whether it is still running - baby seem pretty packed out of CWL, so perhaps they just stopped bothering.

TA

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I heard that the funding for this 'perk' was coming courtesy of the public via the good people at the WDA/Welsh Assembly/OtherQANGO...

:suspect:

Most anti-competitive.

WWW

[MerchantVenturer]

Twin

I'm surprised that anyone would be tempted merely by the return of the toll charge. I would have thought that the main reason for anyone this side of the estuary deciding to use baby at CWL rather that easy at BRS would be convenience, either in flight timings, a real saving on ticket price or ease of getting to the respective airports - at certain times of the day it can take almost as long to drive from the north Bristol fringe to BRS as it can take to drive to CWL along the M 4. Would paying the toll really make that much difference?

WWW

Flybe/EXT are supposedly trying to get financial help from the South West Regional Development Agency to start an EXT-CDG service, which is thought unlikely to be viable without assistance.

They might get it too because the SWRDA seems to be very receptive to helping the economy generally in the far south west.

They seem to take the view that the Bristol area is rich enough and big enough to stand on its own feet most of the time. Of course, the SWRDA is based at Exeter so the chance of a convenient hop off point to Paris might be very tempting. Don't know what BACx/BRS would think of it though.

[alterego]

I thought that this was a deal that Baby had with the Airport. My understanding is that the £4.60 was knocked off your carparking at the airport, on production of a receipt for the toll.

[TwinAisle]

Funnily enough, I was expecting a reply from WWW....

For reference, the money came via the airport (a private company), and as alterego stated, it was knocked off the car parking. Not WDA/public money at all!!

MV - spot on... I would guess that what baby really got out of it was some great publicity! There is a perception that the Severn Bridge is a barrier (even at £4.60) to Welsh passengers using easy, and West Country passengers using CWL. I remain to be convinced....

When are you going to take a pop at Aer Arann, WWW? All those PSOs.... most anticompetitive! ;)

TA

[terrier21]

There are staff here at Bristol who travel over the bridge every day to work at the airport instead of getting similar jobs at CWL. What does this say?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I'm not having a pop at anyone. I think aviation is a cut throat business of extreme competition with low barrier to entry. Therefore the very last thing deserving of any public subsidy is aviation.

The Scottish Highlands and Islands service might just be able to justify itself. But Cardiff and Exeter are hardly out in the wilderness are they?

Unless the subsidy is going to be permanent then its pointless as the airline can walk away in a heartbeat if it is withdrawn. I don't see why the Servern Bridge should be a special case. Plus a subsidy of £4.60 equates to about 12% of the average fare charged by easyJet.

As that is very much greater than the likely profit margin of any airline at Cardiff what does this mean?

Cheers

WWW

[MerchantVenturer]

Twin

Figures recently announced by CWL suggest that 10% of the airport's passengers are from the West Country - I guess you know this anyway.

The most recent BRS figures I can find were issued last November and state that 14% of the airport's passengers live in South Wales.

So there seems to be a cross supply of passengers, Severn Bridge or not and tolls refunded or not - as we thought.

There are many reasons apart from the obvious ones such as some destinations not being available from the other airport, price of ticket and flight timings.

For instance I heard a man on a local radio 'phone-in say he would never use BRS again because he was moved on when trying to pick up someone in front of the terminal building; my neighbours holidayed in Corfu in August but the holiday company they used had no more seats available from BRS so they used CWL; some people merely prefer the 'other' airport for some personal, barely discernible to others, reasons.

I am sure you are right about the Severn Crossing. The toll is not much more than a gallon of petrol and I cannot think this comes into many people's calculations when deciding on their airport. In the Bristol area we are particularly lucky as consumers - if we can't or don't want to use BRS there are also BHX, CWL and EXT all within an hour or so's drive (or even SOU albeit the road journey is diabolical), and if all else fails there is always LHR about ninety minutes up the M 4 (assuming the motorway is open of course).

[TwinAisle]

With respect, WWW, you do not have a clue about the "likely profit margins" at Cardiff - for baby, the only people who are likely to know this are the management at baby. I know baby's operation reasonably well, and I don't have a clear view of their yields. I don't for easy either - this sorta stuff is confidential for all airlines.

And to reiterate - the Severn Bridge payment was NOT a public subsidy. It was provided by TBI plc (note - plc) and is a private commercial arrangement between baby and the airport.

As you say, it is a cut-throat business. Baby pulled off a great publicity stunt with the bridge deal, and one that easy can't do. Good luck to them - all's fair in love, war and the airline business!

TA

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Well there are several clues to likely profits.

If Baby are sitting on an operating profit any greater than easyJet or Ryanair, who both publish results, I will eat my non-existant flying hat.

In 2003 easyJet had 20.3m pax and made £52m profit = £2.56 per passenger. The business works of tiny margins and scary big figures. In that context the Severn Toll is a significant subsidy.

Long may it continue. CWL needs all the help it can get.

Cheers

WWW

[alterego]

www.

Baby don't get any subsidy for the bridge, the pax get the money off their carparking and only if they produce a receipt.

I think the hassle of queing up (rather than chucking the coins in the collection bin), followed by keeping the receipt safe and then queing again at the carpark booth; are too much hassle.

In reality it's a bit of publicity that's all.

[MerchantVenturer]

WWW

Probably going a bit away from the original subject now although I suppose one can make a connection.

If easy added £1 to each single fare that would make them another £20 odd million, in theory at any rate. Would £1 make any difference to the number of pax who would fly? It wouldn't to me.

My past few flights with easy have been (all 'return' fares from/to BRS and including taxes/charges and rounded up to the nearest £): - CPH £46; SXF £42; EDI and GLA (several times) from £25 to £40; NCL £26. Now I would quite 'happily' pay another £ and, to be honest, quite a bit more than these fares and still consider I had a reasonable bargain. In that context the bridge tolls would pale into insignificance. I am retired so pay all my own fares BTW.

It may be that the prices I got were low because I could pre-book well in advance. On the other hand my son has been travelling to NCL recently for meetings, often at short notice, for which his company undoubtedly paid a lot more than my £26 which was booked well in advance. On one occasion his commitment at Newcastle finished early and he quite readily paid £70 (again his company eventually coughed up of course) to change his return flight from the 1910 to the 1610 departure. In this context a £1 rise would be peanuts.

I raised the subject of adding £1 or even £5 to each easyJet fare on the Motley Fool financial site but didn't really get a substantive answer from anyone.

[TwinAisle]

C'mon WWW.... talk about playing with figures....

Let's assume that your figures for easy are a valid analysis (they are not, since "average" profit is meaningless across a complex network - what can management infer from it, and what decisions would they make??) - but let's let that pass...

Let's assume baby are in the same ballpark - no idea if they are, but for the sake of argument. So each baby pax is making £2.56. Let's assume that about 1.2m of them went through CWL, and let's assume MV's figure of 10% from across the bridge. Further, let's assume an average of 2.5 pax per car....

So - you had 120,000 pax, in 48,000 cars (again, assuming they all drove, none used the bus, train, went round Gloucester etc etc). A subsidy of 48,000*4.6 = £220k (assuming yet again that they all could be bothered to claim it, and that the offer ran from day one of baby at CWL to date - which it didn't). baby will have made 1.2m x 2.56 = £3m at CWL, offset by 220k - or in other words, an effect of 19p a passenger. Lost in the roundings.

And all the assumptions I have made tend to exagerate this figure!!

Hmmmmm

TA

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Twinaisle - I still think 19p a passenger is significant.

Merchant - don't worry we all think the same thing inside the company. Surely the same people would be aboard the same aircraft if £2 a sector was added. Someone somewhere must know different I guess - but intuitively it seems wrong.

First is airport, second is timing, third is price, fourth is brand and marketing. Well I think it is in the regions anyway.

But then I do know absolutely nothing about running an airline.

Cheers

WWW

[TwinAisle]

WWW

I still think 19p a passenger is significant

I reeeeeeeally don't think that 19p a head is you know. It all depends on other factors.... if easy was 19p cheaper than baby, I wouldn't fly with them, since I live on CWL's doorstep. This is a price sensitive business, with a reasonable elasticity of demand, but it is only tuned to the 19p sorta level at the margins - where only Ryanair live (fools rush in, where angels fear to tread....)

First is airport, second is timing, third is price, fourth is brand and marketing. Well I think it is in the regions anyway

Too broad brush. As MV alluded to, the travelling public are a fickle breed. They have a dozen great flights on easy (for example), then one goes an hour late, and they start driving from their home in Weston to BHX... there are as many permutations on your order above as there are punters!

But then I do know absolutely nothing about running an airline.

I refrain from comment. ;)

[terrier21]

Why is it that passengers are so fickle?!!
I understand if your paying £300+ to travel with BA on an 1 hour service that you should expect the full service. Now if you are paying £25 for the loco version you would think you will recieve a bit less.

My own mother who has worked in the travel industry for over 10 years booked flights to AGP with EZY and paid £48 each for two returns. on the way back she was charged approx £40 for excess baggage due to the 6 bottles of wine she was bringing back. She tried as they all do to argue the point bu got nowhere and paid the fine. for 3 weeks you was ranting and raving to anyone who would listen about the fact she would never travel with them again yakaty shmakaty!!!

Guess what......?

......You got it shes going to SXF with EZY in november for £24 return!!! but its ok she doesnt like german wine!!!

[TwinAisle]

Terrier21

Couldn't agree more!!

Spend a day in any airline's customer services department, and read some of the cr@p that comes in.....

The last airline I worked with had a gem... pax had been flying on a route from CWL on a regular basis, and was at pains to say how good the service had always been. She's done it just about twice a week for six months, loved the way the crews recognised her, knew what she wanted to drink etc etc. Great.

One day, she had a 90 min delay on her return, that was caused after a day of VILE weather. Everybody round here was struggling, easy were coming into CWL (BRS had fogged out, PLH was out, EXT on the way out etc etc). Airline did all they could. Because of that one delay, she apologised that she would never fly with them again, and now drives to BHX (a trip of about 90-120 mins each way, to pay more for her flight, and with an airline she "doesn't like as much").

Why did I get involved in this nuts business?? :}

The expression about "not pleasing all the people all the time" springs to mind. Just glad to hear that at least your M's devotion to easy hasn't suffered!

TA