Audience becoming less captive on LCCs
 

10 or more years ago, pax on LCCs were a largely captive audience... bored with little to do, and ripe for being flogged all kinds of overpriced things they really didn't need
Many people now carry noise-cancelling headphones and power banks... so they have a far greater choice of things to do that will fill the duration of a flight. Start watching a film while wearing headphones, and cabin crew exhortations to buy expensive tat become inaudible.

Does any of this translate into reduced inflight sales of food, drink, duty free and scratchcards ?

I think, over the years, that the more savvy (at least in Europe and America) have wised up to all sorts of Airline schemes. Many people now buy their food and carry it onto the aircraft, they avoid the "outlets" airside for all sorts of items and I can't remember anyone buying any "duty free" off the trolley for years

I *did* see something come off the duty-free trolley on a recent-ish flight. Perhaps the equivalent of a bunch of flowers purchased from a motorway service station.

Recently I read an article (which I cannot now trace) from the CEO of the World's Favourite LCC(!) saying that 'Ancillaries' were still doing well. Perhaps someone can find the statement.

I think that folks are becoming less attached to carriers all round. Whilst points will keep some chained up, we all know that these schemes always dwindle year by year. Certainly BA are adding high prices to seat selection. I have no wish to be stuck in the middle section of a wide body on long haul, so I pay the charges.

Interestingly I have noticed that there has been a substantial price hike in seats and availability. I will give you two recent examples.

Mrs Mac is heading down to the family house in Majorca in June from Manchester, which is not normally a problem as plenty of flights with Jet 2, EasyJet, TUI , Ryanair. This year after checking her preferred carrier which has been Jet 2, she was told she was only able to fly on the very early flight in the morning, and the late evening departure returning. She then tried Easy Jet and TUI and got the same response as they reserve the more reasonable flight times for holiday packages. Ryanair when the contacted and the quote was around £400 which seems a tad steep. Doing the same journey last year was around £300 and she could use better flight times.
My other example is with regards to EK, and Business class which on the Manchester to DXB route is now touching around £4k return. I used to use this route on a regular basis, and indeed EK are one of our businesses preferred carriers, with SQ and LH being the other two. Currently LH to DXB from Manchester via Frankfurt is half of the EK fare so I don’t think I will be on the A380 much this year, or at least not from Manchester, and I am at Platinum level with them so have probably paid for a chunk of an A380 over the years.

It seems to me that there is some real gouging of customers going on, and some of these carriers may well be storing up some bad will with this, and I hope it bites some of them in the arse, as I do not see how in the times we are in, those hikes are sustainable !

Cheers
Mr Mac

Agreed. All carriers are reaping money of the supressed demand from the Covid years. There are many families who need to reunite - whether the grandparents are travelling or the following generations. There are those who have promised themselves a holiday and, I'm sure, other examples.

My most frequent long haul is to South Africa, visiting family and friends (when we get there it's a cheaper holiday!) In 2022, we made a trip in March to attend my sister's Golden wedding anniversary - my brother and his wife also went. For complicated reasons, in August I decided to make a solo trip in November. I then found the prices were almost double their usual. I'll spare you the details as I was paying cash in 'C' but the flights (both sectors on 380s) were full in all cabins - just a few empties in 'Y'.

Yes, I found this as well when checking some flights for later this year, I could have a more attractive flight time if I wanted to book a holiday...

Maybe trying to recover something from when they couldn't fly and when they were flying around empty.

It's not just the cost. Service and overall travel experience is so much worse than pre Covid, in my experience, irrespective of carrier.

​​​​​​​Imagine the likes of Jet2 and other package holiday operators make more money from package customers than flight only... at least on the hotly contested sun routes from an airport.

Last summer, looking at the inflation of everything, I came to the conclusion that all MDs, CEOs, Chairpeople were trying to prove to their Boss, owner, Board, Shareholders that they can recover the Covid years loss faster than anyone else. "You think you can get 2 years of loss back in 1 year? I can get it back in 6 months." Add testosterone as you leave through the gift shop ...

Paxboy
May interest you to know that I will be flying with LH down to Palma form Munich ret, and the price is 300 Euro if I did not use my points to meet Mrs Mac. That is quite a bit cheaper than the UK Holiday airlines are charging for a similar flight length. Do you think UK customers getting bounced again ? Also doing my next Mid East trip with Oman Air Munich to Muscat, as I do have to go to Muscat, and ret with LH out of DXB and its working out half the price of EK Business Class which is in itself cheaper than EK MAN - DXB. This stinks just as much as the appointment of the DG BBC and Bojo £800 loan !!

Cheers
Mr Mac

Mr Mac,
For Palma drive the extra 30 miles to Liverpool and use EZY, much less hassle than Man and easy (no pun) parking within a few hundred yards to the terminal.

NRU74
She had looked at Easy from Manchester but was coming up with same issues with holiday bookings. I am not sure she checked Liverpool, but she may have done as she was involved with YVAS when they owned it. However will check, thanks for the suggestion.

Cheers
Mr Mac

We had considered Oz for this year but the Reward seats were all gone and the cash prices through the roof. We'll try another year.

SoS - I'd really suggest looking at flights from various European airports - over the years we've made massive savings (up to 35% in Business) at the cost of a few extra hours travel - and if you have to spend a night in Paris or AMS - its part of the holiday ;)

Just checked the last quarterly report from easyJet, and a line stood out:

▪ Ancillaries continue to grow with yield increasing 20% YoY (+85% vs Q1 FY19)

So quite apparently ancillary revenues are actually improving at some carriers. But as far as i know nearly all of them switched to a scheme which requires you to pay extra for a cabin trolley, which of course increases ancillary revenues. And yes, that does include the likes of Lufthansa as well, so it is not limited to low cost carriers. Especially for european flights there is no real difference anyway, except that the legacy carriers require connections at hubs, but usually their procedures for that are working reasonably well.

Apart from that, all airlines see a hugely increased demand, and quite often cannot meet that with increased supply for whatever reasons, like for example deferred delivery slots during the pandemic for example, ability to hire staff which is especially in the UK extremely bad. And of course demand outpacing supply leads to increased prices, in effect we do see normal market practices at work. And yes, as someone who has to commute a route that is mostly not served by the carrier i work for i am hit by the same problem.

S.o.S.
Asturias56 is on it. There are often some good deals via Helsinki etc. If you don't need to be there in 24 hours, take another night. :)

I don't know about S.o.S. but, as we get older, we find the 'indirects' more tiring and pay for the direct routes.:sad: Although I have found that, sometimes, the indirects are not that much cheaper. For South Africa, I have checked and used: Lufthansa and Turkish (never again!). Would use KLM if prices substantially lower. By the time you go over to Zurich, you are taking more time.

I did use the old Sabena a couple of times. The cabin service was very poor and you always had a bounce at FIH at Kinshasa. But they were running 747-300s on the route (1990s) and if you could get Biz upstairs it was very good. The txfer at BRU was superbly timed and organised. The one time we were delayed back from JNB they put me up for the night in the airport hotel. The delay was not their fault.