Future of the big airlines

In my opinion, I can’t see how the low-cost operators would be able to offer low-fares on long-haul routes. The main reason they are able to reduce their operating costs is to have a single type of aircraft within their fleet (usually the 737-800 or A320), which are not suitable for long haul travel…which means that the low-cost operators would have to introduce bigger and better aircraft, and this will cost alot of money and will result in a siginificant rise in fares.

As for the big carriers (i.e BA/Virgin), I think it will be quite a while before we see any significant changes…unless there was to be a merger between rival airlines to form ‘super-airlines’. Either that or the governments may well begin to regulate the industry again…

Personally for me, the next big thing I am eagly looking forward to, besides the maiden flight of the A380, is to see whether a new supersonic aircraft can be designed and built to replace Concorde…it is about time we got something on the drawing boards!

PLEASE NOTE: These are my own opinions, which I am entitled to have, so please do not slag me off for them – thanks!

I think you’ll find that bmibaby is doing it. Although it is most likely that bmibaby has just taken over some bmi flights and slots. The flights may even be operated by bmi with just a bmibaby flight number or titles on the aircraft. Not perfectly sure how it is done.

No, there are NO bmibaby flights from LHR. All that has happened is that baby are selling “Tiny” fares on LHR services operated by bmi. This is essentially just a rebranding exercise designed to try to create a buyer perception that cheap fares are available ex-LHR. bmi is just selling their rear-most seats under a seperate and established brand – in most cases the “Tiny” fares are no cheaper or even in some cases more expensive than the cheapest fares bmi used to offer. LHR is not a low-cost airport and never will be.

A

The short haul flights of a lot of the older airlines may not be profitable, they can not be missed either. If every British pasenger flying KLM long haul where to be removed, KLM would scrap most of its long haul operations. Same goes for other airlines like SAS, SNBA. If anything the older airlines will go even further to mimic the loco’s.

Low cost long haul will happen. Of course not with 50 pounds fares. But 100 or 150 pounds fares will happen no doubt about it. From time to time you can already get fares like that, you just have to know where to look.

Already Icelandair and Finnair offer great fares. From Schiphol UA and US are known to go really low. Maxjet is trying as well, though I do not know their results so far.

When considering long haul low fare airlines, remember that Laker only flourished because it undercut the IATA cartel which fixed airfares at a given level. And it was the IATA cartel that did for Laker.

These days carriers can pitch fares at whatever level they want and the opportunity to undercut fares is therefore much lower.

The major low fare airlines will never fly into LHR, because LHR is not a low cost airport.

I think you’ll find that bmibaby is doing it. Although it is most likely that bmibaby has just taken over some bmi flights and slots. The flights may even be operated by bmi with just a bmibaby flight number or titles on the aircraft. Not perfectly sure how it is done.

There are a number of very good reasons why there are very few low-fare long-haul operations right now, and it won’t get easier for low-fare operators to break into the long haul market in the future either, because:

Also, a low cost airline tries to stuff in as many passengers into its aircraft as possible. the seat pitch will be awful on a long haul aircraft, and imagine sitting for as much as 10 hours with your knee cabs digging into the seat in front of you.

also, of course, you wouldn’t get frills. imagine having to survive for up to 10 hours with just a sandwich and drink which you bought on the aircraft yourself. a no frills airline would be able to provide snacks and drinks which you buy on the aircraft, but i should think that ‘proper meals’, even if you bought them on the flight from the cabin crew, would be out of the question. a meal for each of the 400 or so passengers takes a lot of storing. i should think that a low cost airline would rather use the space for more seats than a galley or two. the level of service would be very low – the airline many not be able to provide any reasonable level of service, even if you paid for food etc when on board.

a large, long haul aircraft is of course much more expensive to operate than a short haul 737 etc. the unit cost for a long haul aircraft is also a lot higher than the cost of buying short haul equipment, so for their budget, a low cost operator will not be able to buy/lease as many aircraft. more crews will be needed as well = more expense. low cost, long haul is therefore, i think, not very attractive to a low cost airline. i don’t think we will ever see really low cost long haul air travel, or atleast not for the next 10 years.

thanks

Happy Christmas 🙂

ive bleated on about this a few times now…i wanted to visit Prague earlier this year,i know Easyjet fly there,so i looked up the price and they wanted £50 each way plus taxes,which i didnt think was to bad at all, looked at the BA website,they offered me a return ticket for £79 Incl the taxes and the flight times were much friendlier than the Easyjet.
If you know the dates u want, then have a look at a BA,there not as expensive as they are made out to be by the likes of MOL or Stelios.

Also i wanted a single way flight from ROME to CDG, Alitalia was going to lighten my wallet by the amount of £590, AirFrance was about £5 cheaper…It worked out cheaper for me to fly BA from Rome to LHR,then LHR to CDG!!!

Talking to a mate the other day and he believes that flying will become a thing for the rich and famous again with sky rocketing fuel prices in around 10-15 years time.

I believe we will have our small niche carriers struggling by and we will have massive consolidations, one or two huge European low costs (Ryanair + Easyjet (or even the two merged!)) and the alliances will form airlines, we’ll have ‘flyskyteam.com’ and ‘one world airways’

The BA short-haul hub at LGW may be more at risk.

I totally agree with this and all you’ve said here! BA @LGW loses £millions a year and is only offset by the longhaul operations, hence possible plans to cut back BA short haul at Gatwick as was recently done at MAN, with frequencies slashed – e.g. 5 times daily LGW-MAN.

I know there will always be passengers who prefer to pay extra and fly on a non low cost airline

The first mistake you’ve made is the classic one made by those sucked in by all the hype generated by Ryanair and easyJet – you’ve assumed that BA are more expensive than the low-fare operators, which is simply not always the case. It would be more correct to summise that there will always be passengers who want the ease and convenience of things like through connections and all the other extras that full-service airlines provide.

The major low fare airlines will never fly into LHR, because LHR is not a low cost airport. If you consider that a significant proportion of BA’s short haul business is on-line connections, then that continue to provide some top end business that go some way to allowing BA to offer competitively low fares to the leisure traveller. The BA short-haul hub at LGW may be more at risk.

Over the last few years, the most competitive damage inflicted on BA’s short haul operation has not come from low-fare carriers, its come from trains. Now that rail has recovered from Hatfield, LHR-MAN air travel is down a lot, LHR-GLA will start to slowly tail off now 125mph working is available all the way from London to Glasgow, and significant damage has been inflicted on LHR-CDG and LHR-BRU by the Eurostar who now have more market share than all air combined between those cities – as the channel tunnel connections get better and faster when St Pancras international opens, the train may start to affect some regional routes from north of London.

Sooner or later an airline will emerge offering long haul low cost travel, then the alarm bells will start ringing. !!!

There are a number of very good reasons why there are very few low-fare long-haul operations right now, and it won’t get easier for low-fare operators to break into the long haul market in the future either, because:

1. Lowest discounted economy fares on the full-service airlines are already not much higher than fares that could be offered by the low-fare sector, particularly given that…

2. The low-fare sector depends on charging high fares for last minute travel, which effectively subsidise the bargain basement high profile offers – sometimes Ryanair can be more expensive than BA if booked on the day of travel or the day before. Fewer last-minute travellers will be prepared to pay HIGH fares for no-frills long haul travel, so will gravitate towards the established carriers. This robs low-fare operators of their top-end market and margin on long haul.

3. It is impossible to achieve the high aircraft and crew utilisation required by low-fare operators to make money, on long-haul flights. A typical New York trip is 7 hours out, 6 hours back – more when realistically scheduled to avoid knock-on delays. It is practically impossible to turn a widebody in less than an hour. That means a round-trip to New York needs 15 hours utilisation at best. What happens to a high-capacity wide-body for the rest of the day – nine hours – as its unsuited to intra-European ops and longer haul ops can’t be squezed into the remaining nine hours.

A

I think BA might start to do long haul routes more but not completly end them becasue i think BA are aware that low cost airlines like Flybe, Easyjet etc are covering those routes and that BA dont need to really consontrate on that but giving people a chance to fly all over the world than the country

..And the two divisions would be called… BEA and BOAC 🙂

Seriously I don’t see that scenario happening. Remember that the short haul and European routes also act as feeders to/from the LHR hub. BA derives a lot of long haul traffic from people travelling from A to B via LHR but not actually stopping in London.

I can see the opposite happening.

With the environmental impact of increasing air traffic, I can see various governments imposing “green” taxes on air travel which will hit the low cost operators hard with some ultimately going to the wall! Ultimately low cost will become a thing of the past! The more established airlines are better placed to ride out the storm.

We are currently in the hey day of cheap air travel so I suggest we all make the most of it while it lasts!

Anybody agree with my theory?

I think BAs future is long haul travel mostly. The European routes are performing ok, and are showing small passenger rises, but these rises are nothing compared to those seen in the long haul sector. I don’t think they’ll ever stop European routes altogether, more probably they’ll shift focus to central and eastern Europe where the market is growing, and let the traditioanl routes in the west just tick over, without any real expansion. Certainly when China & India fully opens up their air travel market BA will make alot of money. I can quite easily see BA Citiexpress going though. They’ve already scaled back alot and I can see them gone within 5 or 6 years.