bmibaby.com
16th Jul 2003, 22:54
I have been thinking about this for a while now in the way of the fact that we now have so many charter and no-frills airlines, could this new breed of airline work or could it not work in Europe?
Whilst Legend went under, could an all-business class airline work in Europe?
spagiola
16th Jul 2003, 23:57
Fairlines tried it in France. Who? you might ask. Exactly.
Golf Charlie Charlie
17th Jul 2003, 02:09
I am not sure of it's worth it for a flight of an hour or two, which is the duration of most flights in Europe between business capitals. That is, unless there were some massive improvement in ground transport and quicker throughput of such premium passengers at both ends of the journey. In other words, if the premium ticket came with central airport car parking, super-accelerated check-in and security queues, premium service baggage reclaim etc., maybe even premium/guaranteed ATC departure slots. Existing business class passengers get this to some degree already, but only to some degree. If the ground services were much more seamless than they are already for existing business passengers, then, just, maybe....., but I doubt it, and I doubt if mainstream airlines will invest in the additional capacity for such flights.
That said, of course, Lufthansa/Privatair are running business-only 737/A319 flights successfully across the Atlantic, but that is a different market altogether
Avman
18th Jul 2003, 03:06
In 1989/1990 there was an airline called German Wings (no connection to the present day German Wings) which flew Md-82s offering an all-business 114-seat cabin. They lasted 10 months.
Also I remember Venture Airways operating an all-business class service with an HS748 between Coventry and Paris CDG. The seats were actually first class seats. The service was magnificent (I used it once) but alas their number was soon up.
I don't think that an all-business class service is economically viable on intra-European routes.