easyJet more expensive than B.A.

[pilotofjet]

easyJet pilots are increasingly turning to traveling on the nations flag carrier on the grounds of cost alone because of a flawed staff travel system. Crew are finding it cheaper to book published fares on BA than staff fares on easyJet due to the airlines refusal to operate a standby staff travel system. Easyjet prides itself on its flag carrier knocking adverts but when its own crew choose to travel with the flag carrier on the grounds of cost, how long will it be before the public get the same message.

[bean_counter]

As long as it takes BA Sales & Marketing Depts to get their act together ?

I'm guessing thry probably outnumber easy sales & marketing by 100 : 1 so you have to wonder what they're all doing ?

[Hand Solo]

Bean counter I assume you haven't been watching much TV lately, or looked at a billboard, or opened a newspaper. Anywhere in Europe!

[stormin norman]

Easy crews are probally only flying Ba so they can get something to eat. One gets a bit bored with cupasoup and crisps!

[View From The Ground]

Can't comment on the Easyjet staff travel system, but I have recently booked two flights on BA because they were cheaper than their low cost alternatives.

[Dixie Normus]

Gotta agree with View From the Ground.
I travel LON-AMS regularly, often at quite short notice. Consistently BA are 20-30% cheaper ex LGW than EZ, and KLM or BD 10-20% cheaper ex LHR.
Tried to book LGWEDI with EZ for this morning, returning 2/3...... £35 more than BA's best deal. (both returning on the red-eye).
Probably the exception rather than the rule, but I'll be sticking with the so-called 'Hi-cost' carriers for now.
Cheers
Dixie :)

[Rongotai]

Just today my travel agent in New Zealand has quoted me a lower fare by BA for AMS-LGW-AMS than I could find to any London airport for the times I wanted on the EZ web site

[AerSligo]

I do not believe that these examples are the exception at all! I have yet to find Easyjet much or any less expensive than the likes of BA, BD, LH etc. I firmly believe that much of the sucess of the likes of Ryan and Easy can be attributed to public misconception - Joe Public checks Easy/Ryan for fares and often just books believing that they will be the cheapest, without thinking to check fares on BA etc.

And before anyone shouts at me, yes I know you can find very very cheap fares but my experience tells me that these are difficult to find!

[jumpseater]

Sligo, you probably have'nt been looking hard enough just checked EZY today, single fares, random days selected:

3rd March Monday LTN-GVA £22.50
3rd March Monday LTN-AMS £27:50
LGW-AMS £37:50
14th April Monday LTN-GVA £42:50
14th April Monday LTN-AMS £37:50
LGW-AMS £27:50
25th March Tuesday LTN-AMS £17:50
LGW-AMS £17:50
on line prices all taxes inc.

The earlier you book the better the chances of a very good deal, flexibility in your travel obviously helps too.

Also just for interest GNER (train) price single London to Retford 21 March 120 miles, £23:00.

So no great difficulty at all! Can't understand where the problem is :)

Edited to add LGW prices

[Final 3 Greens]

Must say that I find Easy relatively expensive compared to BA, Midland etc, but that FR are consistently cheap from STN.

I regularly use the STN-CRL service and it's usually about £25-40 depending how early you book.

The other factor that should be considered in booking low cost is that they can (and in my sometimes experience will) cancel following disruption, without offering any alternatives.

For this reason I will book Ryanair to Charleroi as the Eurostar offers a viable short notice back up, e.g. Stansted Express and tube to Waterloo or back direct from Gare du Midi.)

I will not fly Easy to Athens - BA or even LH would be my choice there, as they will get you there eventually.

When on business, that's an important consideration. It may not be for leisure.

[Sarl]

Who wants a single fare though? Try adding return prices in.

14th April BA LHR - GVA return £86.90(incl breakfast)
EZY LTN - GVA return £100

Enough said.

[Cahlibahn]

Fares on LCAs are a lottery, surely everybody understands that?

If, like me, you wanted to travel to Nice from Luton on 1 Sept you have 5 flights to choose from. On the 07:10 the fare is £31.50, on the 10:00 and 13:25 departures the single fare is £171.50 but if you travel on the 17:45 or 19:55 services it will only cost you £16.50.

BA fares on that date (ex LHR) ranged from £30 - £46.

For the flight timings I required BA came out at £119 return and easy at £79-90 but on different services on the same dates I could have paid as much as £279.90 on EasyJet - significantly more expensive than the dearest BA option at £130.70

Caveat emptor


edited for dodgy capitalisation

[jumpseater]

And Cahliban on the same day train journey I quoted you can pay up to £51:00 pounds for a later departure, for the same class, thats a 100% increase!, your point is?. Aviation is not unique in varying yeild throughout the course of a day!

[Few Cloudy]

His point is, that that is the reason it can sometimes be cheaper on BA.

By the way, that wasn't always the case - easy made sure that even their top price was cheaper than the competition at the start of their operation.

[jumpseater]

Few, I know they are, and I know they did!. But its a gross distortion to say that LCA prices are a lottery, no more so than my example of the train fare. And as he says caveat emptor, regardless of who you book with!.
rgds

[Angus Meecoat]

I think we have all known for years that the LCAs have been a case of brilliant marketing and they have convinced most of joe public that they are cheaper. It is this false perception that BA and the other majors have to overcome.
I travel to AGP from LHR/LGW on a regular basis and BA are always cheaper than EZY.
The only exception is if you are willing to travel all hours of the night and morning both ways with EZY and then there is not a lot in it.

Also there use to be a time when if you booked far enough in advance with EZY it would work out cheaper, not anymore it seems. I have just tried booking in June and July. BA £149.00, EZY £181.00.

BAs marketing and TV ads has been good recently but I am not
sure if the message is getting through. Saying that the loads on AGP always seem excellent but not sure of elsewhere.

[Cahlibahn]

a spread of £16-50 - £171-50 (one way, not incl taxes) for a day six months hence sounds like a bit of a lottery to me!

I guess what I meant, jumpseater, is that you cannot predict with any confidence what the fare might be, even booking six months in advance.

The unwary punter who pays £279.90 return on EasyJet (when she could have paid £130.70 return on BA (dearest fares the respective carriers quoted on the dates I selected)) might consider LCA fares to be a lottery - that is my point :rolleyes:

[bijave]

BA's adapting now. Just like mother nature... ;-)

Recent experiment in France : Air France is adapting as well. They're selling cheaper and cheaper tickets. On par with now-dead Airlib low-cost airline and with the TGV train.

At relatively same prices, I would now consider hassle, prices of transfer from airport, onboard services...And would probably choose majors.

Or in France, I would simply go for the TGV which is an absolutely wonderful tool !!! less than 3 hours for Paris-Marseille, city-centre to city-centre, no check-in hassle, no endless security checks, quiet, nice restaurant, no extra expenses to get to and leave from the airport...

It's going to be a very tough task for ALL airlines, to fight the TGV in France especially considering the SNCF's expansion plans...

[otrex]

until 2001 i was surely amongst the most frequent flyers with easy.
Seems like the hole idea was to use the low cost as a weapon against competition on a particular route.
Example: for two years there were 7 operators between LON and ATH. What easy was doing was matching EXACTLY the fares of the 3-4 cheapest airlines on the route, although the competition was flying to more expensive airports, having 5-6 cabin crew in a 734 (!) and a fantastic drinks-meals service. After two years the competition lost badly and had to abandon the route leaving now only 3 airlines on the route, BA, Olympic and....easyjet.
So what easy did right away was to RAISE the prices all the way to just below what the two flag carriers were charging. If you book late you'll find easy is more expensive than both!
Low cost operation gives you the luxury to "loose" money until the competition is totally wiped out, THEN you cash in. Its an attrition war.
THAT WILL NOT LAST LONG
People are begining to realise whats going on.
Apologies for the lengthy reply, it wasn't me typing but the big hole easyjet made in my pocket !

[Happy Landings]

Just flown back from Barcelona over half term for a short city break Sat to Thurs.

BA cost me £207 RTN for two including a nice breakfast and choice of 10 flights, Looked up BMI Baby from EMA (my nearest airport) and it was £688 RTN, crazy really!

[sisyphus1965]

I have just booked a long weekend for me and the missus in Paris during August. BA were substantially cheaper from Manchester than the equivalent Easyjet flights from LPL.
It pays to shop around and not believe the hype.

[37potter]

I have flown LHRlGVA a few times this year on stanby concessions. Having checked the BA and Easy fares as a back up it has been clear that BA are generally cheaper and much less subject to the risks of cancellation. It is clear that a BA advertisement campaign is needed to encourage people to compare their fares with those of the low cost carriers and highlight the fact that they will not leave you in the lurch when operating conditions get difficult.

[52049er]

Off to PRG in a couple of weeks, and BA were (at £110 rtn) about 50% cheaper than any of the 'L'CAs.

[Anti-ice]

EasyJet shares tumble 14%

EasyJet today is seeing its shares tumble after it announced it had cut fares to encourage passengers on to its planes amid tougher economic conditions and increased competition.

The group, which bought rival Go last May, said for the four months to January 31 its average fare was around 6% lower than the fare generated by the two airlines during the same period in 2001.

EasyJet says the reason was partly competition but had more to do with difficult economic conditions.

[Amazon man]

Its taken BA a long time but finally they are competing with the LO cost airlines and winning back business.

Their route structure is vastly superior coupled with the number of services they operate, the days of the LO costs having it all their own way are over and as long as BA manages to keep its overheads down it will survive and prosper.

It is cash rich at the present time to the tune of almost 2 billion pounds in order to survive any short term effects of any Gulf war. What plans if any have the likes of Easy and co made for such an eventuality.

[Andy_R]

I must agree with the above postings. Having consistently travelled with Easy and obtained some very good value fares, I now find that BA win every time UNLESS you are prepared to book way in advance or travel at far less sociable hours of the night!!

The days of going to Edinburgh for lunch are gone :(

[Final 3 Greens]

Just costed Athens for my next trip, a month ahead.

Easy £166, BA £149.

Although, I'll probably decide to fly LH business for £550, since I like to have a ticket that can be changed and the LH rules allow that. BA are £850 for a fully flexible economy.

[Few Cloudy]

Bijave - we agree on something! The TGV is a huge competitor, for all the reasons you say - so is the BMW up to a certain leg length.

The problem for the established big carriers in an attrition war, which this is, is that they don't have a genuine low cost structure. The low cost boys do.

So I reckon that unless the coffers are full over at BA, Air France and DLH, the cheapies will win the day. Or could it be that the big boys have picked a good time - just as Ryan and easy have committed to buying a huge amount of aircraft?

[Uncle Monty]

This easyJet knocking is all very amusing if a little pointless.

You could find tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of examples, of BA being cheaper than ezy.

That means very little when ezy alone will fly some 12 million plus passengers this year.

Sometimes they will be more expensive and sometimes less.

However the average fare should be and is considerably cheaper than BA. That's the way the loco thing works. Don't just take my word for it. Southwest have made a long standing and very profitable business doing just this in the US.

In any case, ezy confirmed today their yeilds are down 6 per cent on a year ago. That would suggest their fares are going down - not up.

[View From The Ground]

I should add further to my previous post that I have never been a big BA fan. But in my most recent flight experience they were excellent. £76 LHR-CGN-LHR including taxes, £56 for two days intermediate car hire. The airplane went tech on the outbound journey and they wheeled accross another keeping our delay to an inconsequential 1 hour and 15 minutes. The excellent Captain kept us well informed and did take the opportunity to point out that the plane swap might not have occured on a LCA. The self service check in worked without a hitch and the price was obtained 2 days prior to departure. Oh and the crew were friendly! They did this for just 8 pax on the plane, not sure about the economics of this unless they had a full plane load back but cannot fault the customer service...exceptional.
I do not knock LCA because they can provide bargains too...£66 for three people to Italy, with about a 90 minute drive to Milan on FR hard to beat...no in flight service of course but flights all on time. Of the LCA I have found Ezy to be consistently more expensive than FR, and therefore have yet to fly with them, however since I live close to LGW the day I am sure will come.
Good job BA......but lets remember that the fares with BA are only what they are because of the competition from the LCA...a fact that many people posting here seem to have neglected to take account of.

[paulo]

My experience from the outside suggests that Easy and BA are running different yield curves.

Very simply, these days Easy seems to start lower and end higher than BA.

I'm sure it wasn't always this way - I used to do alot of winter sports LTN-GVA round trips a few years ago and never paid more than 100-150 on Easy. I saw approx £400 on 'Orange' at Christmas. :eek:

Equally, perception that BA is 'premium service' is sometimes a bit misfounded...

You can land in the core LGW terminal on Easy, whilst your BA 'Premium' peers can find themselves in the expansion terminal at the end of the shuttle train, sometimes without even a proper gate (add a bus journey to the train journey to the terminal)

In terms of customer service, I've been flatly refused a refund for a BA flight they couldn't fly or offer a same day alternative to, whilst during the same ATC failure Easy were offering unequivocal refunds. The idea that BA will always look after you, and LCAs won't* is as much a myth that LCAs are always cheaper.

* Excluding Ryanair, who have a shocking attitude to all sorts of things, ranging from charging pilots for submitting CVs, near zero customer service staff, alleged repeated infringement of ATC airspeed limits, groundspeed limits...

[Rongotai]

I don't know whether you actually want the customer viewpoint on this forum but the REAL issue for people like me is --- my most commonly flown BA route is SYD-SIN or BKK-LHR and back with lots of European sectors while I'm there. I fly this route 4 times a year on average. What worries me if the LCA's shaft the 'heritage' airlines on short haul is what then happens to the long haul. The last thing I need is to have to retireve my luggage at LHR in order to move to another carrier for LHR-HEL or AMS.

[Final 3 Greens]

Uncle Monty

This easyJet knocking is all very amusing if a little pointless

I don't see a lot of Easyjet knocking on this thread, just comparisons of value for money and praise for BA for competing. Ryanair are normally the LCA who get slaughtered in and around this place.

You may be right in your assertion that the Easy fares will be lower on average, it's just that most of us don't seem to have had that experience.

[Hoping]

Hey Monty!
Of course the average EZY fare is lower than a full fare airline's average fare - this is because in addition to offering low fares, the full fare airlines also offer higher fares for business and first class which EZY does not have. These much higher fares then affect the average you mentioned. If you insist on talking averages then a fairer one to consider would be the average economy fare (all EZY fares can be considered economy fares can they not?)

Anyway, I found a few fares. These are returns to AMS from LGW. I simply selected dates and chose the cheapest options for the dates, making a brief note of times for comparison.

5/03 – 10/03 LGW - AMS:
EZY £67.10
BA £77.30
BM £59.80

28/02 – 6/03 LGW - AMS
EZY £93.27
BA £102.30
BM £134.20

9/03 – 17/03 LGW - AMS
EZY £58.27
BA £77.30
BM £58.10

Most of the EZY flights were at pretty unpleasant hours and naturally subject to the standard unpleasant terms and conditions of EZY flights. Certainly EZY is not the best option for the 1st and 3rd example. In the 2nd example EZY is only £9 cheaper than BA. I think I would be happy to pay the extra £9 to avoid EZY and fly BA for obvious reasons of convenience and likelihood of inconvenience.

At the moment it would appear that unless EZY is trying to kill competition on a route, they are probably not the best option available for somebody in need of a low fare and reasonable convenience.

edited for mis-use of funny faces...

[Dixie Normus]

I'm not knocking EZ, but like Final 3 Greens & Hoping noted, purely drawing comparisions and deciding on value for money, combined with agreeable departure times for the routes which I socially travel consistently.
One added bonus for passengers that I also forgot to mention
was that as least with the likes of BA/BD/KL/LH etal is that other carriers will, where seats available (and with certain revenue criteria met eg. non concession fare passengers) carry people should their flights be cancelled / heavily delayed etc...... rather than waiting for a servicable acft. Quite useful if you're only away for a short weekend!!!
Cheers
Dixie
:)

[MarkD]

One differentiation between LCAs and full service should be airports.

Perhaps airports like LHR and LGW should be reserved for airlines who will allow through-checking of baggage. LTN and STN can be where EZ and FR fight it out. BA and others at LGW then don't have the pressure of the LCAs undercutting their margins and being forced to transfer flights to LHR causing T4 chaos.

BAA could change their fee structure to penalise airlines who don't allow through checking - watch the dust fly as FR leave Gatwick! It might ease the pressure on BA enough to restart ORK-LGW :D :D :D

[paulo]

Dixie... I've flow lots of BA and Easy...

On a weekend trip when Swanwick went down, BA refused to refund, and did not offer any accomodation. They also refused to allocate any spare seats, on the basis that the only space left was in front of the divider. The consistent view from various BA staff was that yes, they would fly empty 'club'* seats out of LHR no matter how many economy passengers were stranded overnight in T1. :mad:

The consistency suggested this was policy, and a call center manager went as far as saying the reason for this was that his department would get charged in line with the 'loss of revenue' if they gave you a discretionary seat in club so you didn't have to sleep in the terminal or pay for a hotel.

This is totally in line with their rights as an airline, but people should be aware they are not automatically the good guys.

During the same ATC failure, Easy were unequivocal to all customers - the first thing the call centre greeting message said was that everyone affected was entitled to a refund. Simple.

Still, this Friday's LHR-EDI hop, BA were fifty quid cheaper than EZY from LGW, so I've plumped for BA in spite of their Ryanair style customer service. :p

* Club Europe: Identical seat pitch & furninishing as economy, guaranteed 'spare' seat in middle of triple row. Some champagne. Slightly better food. Not like 'giving away' transatlantic first.

[Happy Landings]

Hey Monty,

Glad you went to great detail to point out that on average ezy fares are lower, one presumes thats because they're a low cost airline!

No-one here is suggesting low cost is not a good thing, I've taken a number of flights which haven't cost anymore than £5 each way if you dont include the tax and the airport charge and the security charge and the bus fare to the nearest city and the cost of a burger at MacDonalds (which is more expensive in an airport departure lounge than on the high street) and a cup of tea ( of which I think ryanair makes 8% of its proffitt from selling the highest priced tea in Europe - thats a quote I read in a book One time).

I think the main message of this thread is shop about, you can get all sorts of fare's on all sorts of airlines ( maybe price fixing was a good idea, at least you knew you'd pay the same fare on all airlines!)

Happy Landings

:D

[Jet II]

Happy Landings
maybe price fixing was a good idea, at least you knew you'd pay the same fare on all airlines!

I'm assuming that comment is a joke.

The only reason that you can get a fare on BA for 50 quid is because of the LCA's - if the likes of Ryan and Easy were driven out of buisiness by BA (highly unlikely I know) then you can be assured that the fare would shoot up back to the £300 region.

Remember the dirty tricks BA and others got up to to drive Laker out of business when he tried to introduce low fares.

[Few Cloudy]

Yep. And the dirty tricks continue, if the story about the BA Captain telling his pax that you wouldn't get an aircraft swap on a Low cost Airline is true.

Completely false information in the case of easy - who's aircraft are anyway by the way pretty new and well maintained.

[pilotofjet]

EASYJET STAFF ARE CONSISTENTLY FINDING FARES BEING OFFERED CHEAPER TO THE PUBLIC ON THE EASYJET PUBLIC BOOKING SITE THAN ON THE STAFF SITE. IN ADDITION, MANY FIND IT CHEAPER TO BOOK A BRITISH AIRWAYS FLIGHT THAN USE THEIR OWN STAFF TRAVEL. IN AN INDUSTRY WHERE STAFF TRAVEL IS CONSIDERED AN ENTITLEMENT AND OFTEN QUOTED AS SUCH, EASYJET BUCK THE TREND AND CHARGE THEIR OWN STAFF MORE THAN THE PUBLIC ON THE SAME FLIGHT BOOKED AT THE SAME TIME.

WE ALL KNOW THAT YIELDS ARE DOWN 6% BUT THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

[Human Factor]

pilottofjet,

No need to SHOUT!! However, you've pretty much described the staff travel situation at BA.:mad:

[Taildragger]

Well...... BA Standby Staff Travel is just that....Standby unless you want to use your precious Firm, for short haul.
I travel very regularly LON (LGW or LHR) to ATH and Vice versa, and find that to get a firm seat, it is very often better to use BAW rather than EZZ. Not always though, but when you consider BAW offer the same fare virtually year round and EZY ebb and flow according to demand, then over a period of time BA are pretty good, especially at School Holidays and Christmas etc etc.
If it's a wet weekend in November, go Easy jet, if it's second week in July go BA. If it's long haul to new Zealand go BA.!!!!!
Add in a few glasses of wine and a hot meal, you are well away.
It is not getting any better. IMHO, Staff Travel went downhill when they let the masses travel.


" Hey, quick...look, there are people behind this curtain. I thought that aircraft were only 50 metres long too."