Do Easyjet cancel flights with poor load factors?
ExXB, fair point. It might be interesting to know how far back that research went. When I first joined the travel industry in the 70s and probably more to the point when I switched sides to the airlines at the end of the 70s there were a couple of occasions where the airline quite openly told me a cancellation was because the loads of 2 aircraft could be consolidated on to one.
On a slightly different note, there have also been periods during oil shocks, wars and the like when two routes have been consolidated. I can remember going to Montreal through Boston because BA had stopped operating both flights and combined them. I think that was probably the 1st Gulf War.
I believe it still happens but that the EU rules have changed the game. If you look through the archives here there a posts about "can airline X really change my times in this way" and the answers almost always point at the EU rules. I think what has changed is WHEN the changes take place. The cancellations that I referred to when the airline admitted it was for commercial reasons happend less than a week before departure. These days they seem to happen earlier because the EU rules up the cost to the airline the later they leave it.
Having said all that it has never (in my experience) been standard operating procedure and I do believe that it has become increasingly rare (nearly to the point of disappearing).
On a slightly different note, there have also been periods during oil shocks, wars and the like when two routes have been consolidated. I can remember going to Montreal through Boston because BA had stopped operating both flights and combined them. I think that was probably the 1st Gulf War.
I believe it still happens but that the EU rules have changed the game. If you look through the archives here there a posts about "can airline X really change my times in this way" and the answers almost always point at the EU rules. I think what has changed is WHEN the changes take place. The cancellations that I referred to when the airline admitted it was for commercial reasons happend less than a week before departure. These days they seem to happen earlier because the EU rules up the cost to the airline the later they leave it.
Having said all that it has never (in my experience) been standard operating procedure and I do believe that it has become increasingly rare (nearly to the point of disappearing).
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In reply to the OP question.........no.
I've operated a few in the past where the loads are so poor I have had to reposition pax either under flight crew direction for trim purposes or to make sure all overwing exits are manned by an ABP. It probably would have been operationally cost effective to cancel but they didn't.
Not recently though, the loads have been just fine
I've operated a few in the past where the loads are so poor I have had to reposition pax either under flight crew direction for trim purposes or to make sure all overwing exits are manned by an ABP. It probably would have been operationally cost effective to cancel but they didn't.
Not recently though, the loads have been just fine
When I first joined the travel industry in the 70s and probably more to the point when I switched sides to the airlines at the end of the 70s there were a couple of occasions where the airline quite openly told me a cancellation was because the loads of 2 aircraft could be consolidated on to one.
On a slightly different note, there have also been periods during oil shocks, wars and the like when two routes have been consolidated. I can remember going to Montreal through Boston because BA had stopped operating both flights and combined them. I think that was probably the 1st Gulf War.
On a slightly different note, there have also been periods during oil shocks, wars and the like when two routes have been consolidated. I can remember going to Montreal through Boston because BA had stopped operating both flights and combined them. I think that was probably the 1st Gulf War.
Changes like BA made were a normal published schedule adjustment, as happens regularly.
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Q
Fair comment. I wasn't meaning to be critical, by the way. I believe in this case it was because they needed a spare aircraft pretty quickly and Valencia happened to be handy.
uite possible, because if there is an issue (eg aircraft gone tech, crew out of hours, etc), then the ops team will decide on the jury-rig rearrangement that is most effective on the spot
An airline like BA generally speaking operate A-B-A or maybe A-B-C-B-A (I'm thiking of Australia here). Many of their routes are operated several times a day. If the bookings, in both directions A-B and B-A are low and if the next flight on the same route has sufficient seats to take everyone then a cancellation can occur and passengers are then reaccomodated on the later flight. But passengers are not the only consideration. There's a lot of freight moved in the belly of aircraft and it can be profitable to operate a flight with a very low passenger load factor if there is a good cargo load.
You are correct however, that there are some W patterns and triangles operated in certain parts of the network and the BOH-VLC will definitely have been an example of this.
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I'm flying with BE out to DBV at the end of the month. I'm wondering if I might be the only pax as it is last one out for the season! Still, they can't cancel it if it brings a full load back!
Surely the whole point of YM is that even if a route is doing worse than the route planners expected, you just drop the base price, and you still get a reasonable number of bums on seats.
Given that Easy largely fly between places with reasonable populations at each end (ie a lot of their routes will have demand from both directions), I would expect their flights to be easier to fill than when Ryanair operate from STN to the middle of nowhere.
Even if Easy aren't making anything on the flight, still better to put a bum on the seat and hope it will want feeding. It may also want to park itself in a hire car at the destination too.
So apart from special cases (start/end of season, major sporting events etc), how often is this even something that Easyjet actually have to worry about?
Surely the whole point of YM is that even if a route is doing worse than the route planners expected, you just drop the base price, and you still get a reasonable number of bums on seats.
Given that Easy largely fly between places with reasonable populations at each end (ie a lot of their routes will have demand from both directions), I would expect their flights to be easier to fill than when Ryanair operate from STN to the middle of nowhere.
Even if Easy aren't making anything on the flight, still better to put a bum on the seat and hope it will want feeding. It may also want to park itself in a hire car at the destination too.
So apart from special cases (start/end of season, major sporting events etc), how often is this even something that Easyjet actually have to worry about?
Whilst i'm totally amazed at Ryanair's idea of Paris etc, to be fair to many of those airports, they do actually serve somewhere and sometimes which a large catchment. Curiously we see very little of this 'Frankfurt but 100KM away' in the UK. If we did then we could easily have seen Manchester (Liverpool), Bournmouth (London) etc. The demographics of the smaller airports used by Ryanair maybe very different but it doesn't always mean they are literally in the middle of nowhere and that flights struggle to be filled.
Back to Easyjet. It's just occured to me that on the weekly call we can dial into with Carolyn McCall, OTP stats are quoted and cancellations on your average week tend to be between 10-15 each week. Even if Easyjet were cancelling sectors, with over 7500 sectors a week, it wouldn't be a widespread practice at all.
Back to Easyjet. It's just occured to me that on the weekly call we can dial into with Carolyn McCall, OTP stats are quoted and cancellations on your average week tend to be between 10-15 each week. Even if Easyjet were cancelling sectors, with over 7500 sectors a week, it wouldn't be a widespread practice at all.
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Flybe
I've always wondered whether Flybe regularly cancels flights due to low load factors, otherwise the Dash 8 is a very unreliable aircraft.
You only have to read through the online reviews for Flybe to discover how regularly they consolidate flights due to apparent technical faults, and I've been on the receiving end of these on several occasions where the total load of the two combined flights has been around 20 people.
But then Flybe have such a poor passenger rating and reputation, it seems anything is possible. Unfortunately you can accidently end up on Flybe metal between CDG and MAN.
You only have to read through the online reviews for Flybe to discover how regularly they consolidate flights due to apparent technical faults, and I've been on the receiving end of these on several occasions where the total load of the two combined flights has been around 20 people.
But then Flybe have such a poor passenger rating and reputation, it seems anything is possible. Unfortunately you can accidently end up on Flybe metal between CDG and MAN.
