Low cost or "normal" airline ?
 

Low cost companies are here to stay or just a passing industry ? What do you think? Are we going to see them established in 5 years time or would they have disappered by then?

Considering that two low cost carriers feature in the top 5 European airlines, certainly in terms of passengers carried, I would have thought the answer was obvious.

Low cost are here to stay. Many of the old style low-service airlines (Monarch etc) will convert to low cost or die. The ancient legacy carriers such as BA , AF et al will die a bit more slowly.

That's a hard one to answer Kanok and greatly depends on routes, state of economies etc. The old model of full service on short haul has seen its day I think, why should I fly KLM, BA or LH to AMS or any other near destination when all I get for the extra price is a buttie and coffee? That assumes that the Loco has a good price.

Pax have become more savvie and book ahead, the small impromptu market will always suffer the penalty of higher price shortly before flying and maybe full service will offer better price. However, that is only short haul.

Whether LCCs can open up the longer haul market remains to be seen, it is a far different market and the corpses are there to see, Laker, Zoom etc.

I do not think the present bunch of Locos will find the magic formula but do not rule out a true business visionary coming along to do so.

Short haul, LCC everytime, except perhaps Ryanair. Long haul I go for the more established airlines because if something goes wrong you want a little more than a refund, take it or leave it.

There is a very fine line between low cost, and being treated like sh1t.

90% of the time everything works fine. But bare in mind that the lo-co's will drop you when things go pair shaped.

I personally look for cheap charter flights when travelling to holiday destinations....Thomson, Fca, etc.

Why, because there are 200 plus people on that plane who are going on a package holiday.....the airline has to get them out there and will never cancel a flight and ditch passengers (unless extreme circ's)

But yes, the Lo-Co's are here to say, airlines like BA, AF, KLM etc will be changing to fit into the new market.

As a Pax only who regularly travels to Southern Europe with my better half or alone and living close to LGW I always use LCC including RyanAir. Only business, City Centre to City Centre and Pax with needs such as disabled, golfers, high baggage amounts and people who think they can trust the M25,M23:ugh:, M4 British Rail to get them to check in 5 minutes before it closes etc would be stupid enough to pay the prices charged by BA, Luftwaffe, AF, Iberia Swiss Air etc.

If you travel light, book the flight and check in on line, arrive on time ALWAYS (which normally means early), do not want a free newspaper, plastic breakfast and care not what seat you sit in then LCC fit the bill. I personally see no future for shorthaul high cost carriers except as a niche market for business men and people who have to travel at short notice. I would only be purchasing shares in LCC's.

BobH
:ugh:

Thank you all for your comments! I do also agree with you all, and i think that the low-cost concept will survive, especially nowadays when aviation is for everyone. But yes, probably on the short-haul bussiness! My only fear, if i may say so...is that the stability of those companys is somehow more fragile...from the "worker" point of view.
I mean, there will always be loco's on the market for custumers, but would they be stable enough for the one's who work for them and want a "career"?... Yes, i do work for one of those loco's...and i admit that i'm not in a confortable mood always thinking will they be surviving the next fall...bla,bla... We will live and see, i guess!

K.
:ok:

like Lidl and the likes they serve the market that either look for value for money or simply cannot afford a higher level carrier.

What they have clearly done is opened up a new market, but on the downside the terms and conditions of those who work in the industry have clearly suffered-Time will tell.

Storming Norman


Once again as only a Pax wot pays and not a member of the Airline Industry I can only say the terms and conditions of employment have sunk right across the board, less money + more work, in both Leisure, Military, Law Enforcement being my fields of work. Even Bankers and MP's are suffering, but not as much as the rest of us.

It is rare to board a LCC with many spare seats on short haul, take out Monday and Friday and the same cannot be said for BA et-al.

BobH:confused:

either way short haul on LCC is a quite unpleasant experience....as for LCC for 5 hour sectors not sure thats bearable at all....but unfortuanetly seems the way forward

longhaul, I'd never consider it.

Clipstone

I fully agree with you, 4 hours realy is the max you can bear on a LCC, Train or Bus. That take in most of Europe.

BobH

I don't get this mentality about BA being infanately more expensive on short haul, If you look carefully you will find many short haul fares to europe that are very comparable to the likes of Easyjet etc and you don't get all the rubbish that comes with the LCC. I think people have it stuck in their heads that to fly BA you will always pay more, and this is clearly a massive marketing problem that I think BA should be addressing sooner rather than later.

Well said Aviator - and absolutely spot on. The likes of BA marketing have been very poor in getting this message across.

Low cost is a very relative term, I have seen enough families stranded at a check-in desk at 01am paying out a fortune on hotac and alternative flights after their lcc flight had been canx.

But the real issue at hand when we start talking about if lcc's will survive (or conversely if legacy carriers will fade away) will lie in this question: will lcc start nickle and diming when it comes to safety? This could be on training, human factors, equipment, scheduling etc, and will this be a contributary factor if (God forbid) we have an incident with loss of life?

IMHO this will prove to be the differentiator in due course....

Lauderdale

I am still coming to this as a no frills wanted, paying Pax. To suppose safety and air accidents will prevent people using a certain air line is not a sustainable statement. Did BA suffer dramatic loss when one of its flights put down on the approach to the runway at LHR. Has Air France suffered a great loss of passengers since it lost its A/C over the Atlantic I doubt it.

If Pax thought it would happen to them they would not fly. It is all to do with cost and convenience to a large percentage of the Pax's and little else when they fly within Europe.

A list of airlines with no fatalities since 1970 in Europe click the link.

European Airlines with No Fatal Passenger Events Since 1970

Bob Head:

BobHead

Are you suggesting that the BA accident and the AF disaster were directly due to either companies SOP's? Or poor maintenance? etc. If so then please show us the report that states this to be the case as every cooperate manslaughter charge will be thrown at them you can think off.

We both know that this is not the case. In fact after what happened with US1594 I would be even more inclined to fly Cactus!

Providing a list that goes back to 1970 is somewhat irrelevant as real lcc flying (as far as number of sectors are concerned) did not take off until about 2003/4.

The number incidents/accidents is really irrelevant - the underlying cause will be.

My point is that if an operator will be subject to (succesful?) cooperate man slaughter charges the press associated with this will most likely will be the end for that that operator.

:}

Forgot to add this bit:

:eek:

BobHead

Are you suggesting that the BA accident and the AF disaster were directly due to either companies SOP's? Or poor maintenance? etc. If so then please show us the report that states this to be the case as every cooperate manslaughter charge will be thrown at them you can think off.

No but the Pax's only see a certain airline has crashed and care little for the reason. Nor will it effect their use of that airline.

We both know that this is not the case. In fact after what happened with US1594 I would be even more inclined to fly Cactus!

Providing a list that goes back to 1970 is somewhat irrelevant as real lcc flying (as far as number of sectors are concerned) did not take off until about 2003/4.

Not being from the industry I used stats available on the Internet. As stated until you reach the accident rates of the Russians and Chinese the Pax care little in the long term.

The number incidents/accidents is really irrelevant - the underlying cause will be.

As above I think its the opposite

My point is that if an operator will be subject to (successful?) cooperate man slaughter charges the press associated with this will most likely will be the end for that that operator.

So to date who has been successfully charged and convicted and not had it turned over on appeal of a Corporate Manslaughter Charge even with the "Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007" to make it easier to convict...
.



BobH