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Flying's Not Just the Ticket

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

By SION BARRY Western Mail

Aviation expert Martin Evans examines how customer demand is leading chartered flight providers to move in the scheduled sector THIS month, low cost airline bmibaby celebrates the third anniversary of commencing flights from Cardiff International Airport.

From Cardiff they now fly to Malaga, Alicante, Palma, Faro, Geneva, Prague and Edinburgh. Flights to Paris, Jersey, Cork, Belfast and Glasgow are booked through bmibaby but flown by Air Wales.

It has recently been announced that another low cost airline will operate from the airport in May 2006. Thomsonfly, already well known at the airport for charter flights will be operating scheduled services.

So a collective cheer goes up from the travelling public in South Wales as another exciting range of destinations becomes available from our local airport. However, if we examine the new routes - Malaga, Alicante, Palma and Ibiza - three out of the four routes duplicate those already operated by bmibaby. Even more confusingly, on some days Thomsonfly will operate two flights to the same destination, one will be full of traditional charter airline passengers who have booked a package through a travel agent and another flight will be full of passengers who have booked direct. What is going on?

For a new airline operating at Cardiff, the choice of Palma, Alicante and Malaga would be a sensible option even though there are other airlines, both scheduled and charter operating on the routes. These are the numbers one, three and four most popular international destinations from Cardiff. If you are an airline already operating charter services to these destinations the choice becomes even more certain.

It is thought that we didn't have low cost airlines before Ryanair, easyJet and bmibaby appeared. We did have them but we called them charter airlines. In a similar way to the low cost airlines, the charter airlines tightly control costs and use the aircraft for many more hours of the day than network airlines do. Passengers are driven by cost and can often be persuaded to travel long distances to the airport at inconvenient times.

The differences are in how the tickets are sold. A passenger flying on a charter flight will probably have purchased a package that includes accommo- dation. Even a passenger travelling flight only will have bought the seat through a tour operator, probably using a travel agent.

They will accept having very little control over when they travel, probably travelling for a fixed period of seven or fourteen days.

The low cost airlines, by operating as scheduled services, have brought much more choice to the passenger. There are no constraints as to timing, travellers can go on holiday for as long as they want, not for a fixed seven or fourteen days. Bookings are direct with the airlines, the majority of them over the internet. Passengers who are comfortable with booking their flight over the internet have become comfortable with booking their hotel and car hire, removing the tour operator and travel agent from the process.

So the expansion of the low cost airlines hasn't all been an expansion in the number of people travelling by air. There has been a movement in passengers from the charter airlines to the low cost airlines. At Cardiff, while the number of passengers travelling to Malaga has remained static between 2003 and 2004 - 135,375 and 134,565 respectively - the number travelling on charter services has dropped from 65,431 to 52,077 while the number travelling on scheduled services has risen from 69,944 to 82,488.

Thomsonfly has commenced their own low cost services because the big tour operators are not going to sit on their hands while their markets are eroded. Hence, two flights to the same destination on the same day, one with passengers who have booked through a travel agent and the other with passengers who have booked direct. Providing this option to the passenger enables the tour company to retain the business of the independent traveller whilst still having the option of selling hotel space and car hire as add on services.

With these two different ways of booking, can the passenger be certain that they been informed of all the options? Whether the passenger books through a travel agent or books direct, they probably can't be. Into this information gap is stepping the airports themselves with clear information on their websites showing the range of destinations with links through to the airlines serving those destinations. Their websites encourage visitors to leave their contact details so that they can be informed of new services. Cardiff Airport is taking this one step forward and offering an online booking facility of their own which encourages loyalty to the airport rather than to individual airlines.

How good is this for the passengers? Just look out for some very low prices next year as the airlines compete for passengers and while the range of destinations doesn't look very adventurous at the moment, you only have to look at the destinations served by the same airlines from other airports to see how the route network could develop.

Martin Evans is Visiting Fellow in the Wales Transport Research Centre at University of Glamorgan

Source: Western Mail

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