Operating Costs
 

Does anyone know the cost of operating a small B737 or BAe 146 size of aircraft on a 1 to 1 1/2 hour length sector? With all things such as aircraft leasing charges, overheads, wages, airport charges, en route charges, fuel, engineering, etc, etc it must be a substantial sum and I was just wodering how Easy and Ryan can afford to fill their Aircraft with people who've paid 50 quid for a ticket.

For the second part of the answer: you have fallen into the trap of thinking that every ticket goes for £50. In fact only a few go for that amount being the inflexible stay on Saturday night and return on the least convenient type. If you want to travel at a specific time there and back that does not coincide with this, then you will see your ticket price rise to normal BA levels.

Answer: BA should get rid of the last few empty seats by this cut-price marketing, and low-costs do not pay £5k for one sector unless it is really short.

Apols for writing whilst drunk on original (reason for his annoyance at me below)

[ 01 November 2001: Message edited by: Lucifer ]

Strangely, this was on BBC News last night. They quoted 5500UKP (sorry - US keyboard!) for Easy 737 LTN-EDI. I think they said they needed to be 2/3 full to break even.

GUCU,
Landing fee, £75 per tonne [ish]
Fuel, £0.30 per litre
Security, £ 10.00 per pax
En-route charge, can't remember
Push back, £50 [ish]
"Handling" £25 [ish]
Then we have "salaries".....
I think that I will drive, cos I can't [really] afford to fly :D
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

I believe that EasyJet charge depending on how many seats are available; the more seats availablr the lower the price.
In the BBC news item mentioned by malanda, they stated that everyone they spoke to paid a different price, but most of the people they showed paid around £50, which if they are correct at £5500 per trip would need 110 pax, or abour ¾ full. Saying that the flight did apear to be well subscribed, and they are noted to fly only to the most popular destinations.

I remember reading somewhere that EZY's figures are based on a average load factor of 80% network wide.

That was only jovial and I have now altered it: sorry if you took it the wrong way. I was explaining why it was not as it seems which I thought may have been of value to you: no I do not know the costs for those aircraft though, but it you want me to explain airline price discrimination I will: it is essentially second-degree price discrimination, which is the practrice of making lower-priced goods less attractive to prevent those will a higher willingness-to-pay from doing so ie business travellers have a less-restrictive ticket/travel when they need rather than going at the lowest advertised price (the £50 you see advertised) on a less well-timed flight.

[ 31 October 2001: Message edited by: Lucifer ]

Lucifer I think you have your aanswer in that not all seats are at the same price. Cost is based on two elements fixed cost ( fixed company overhead)and operating cost ( actual cost of the flight)and every case is different depending on the overhead of the airline involved and how that is spread across its fleet. If you really want a detailed answer to your question then my fee is £800 a day plus expenses......