It is highly non-linear in seats, size of fleet and routes, they also make a load of money in high margin extras (e.g. hotels, car rentals, free land, shops, food & beavrages…) but I agree the main core buisness is mainly there to loose money unless the last 60% expensive tickets pays for the first 40% super cheap ones (assuming they can fill the whole aircraft)
Peter wrote:
So the lo-co formula cannot work other than by misleading people.
I don’t find anything misleading these days. I’ve paid tickets down to single digits (breakfast at airport was more expensive), up to several hundreds (of monetary units, no digits!) for a last minute ticket on a busy weekend.
All extras are fairly clear, and honestly these days even my recent experiences with BA / United show these companies adopted the same model. Yesterday, I was flying New Orleans to NYC (United) and the person at the gate was saying they were at capacity and couldn’t check bags, so they would be “removing bags and bodies” (sic) from the plane. Imagine the outrage if that happened on Ryanair!
I personally view a lot of the short haul travel as just a convenience. I’m sure for lots of people the commute home <→ work is worse than flying low cost, but they don’t seem to mind. I find people not rational, Ikea is loved (in my opinion for a much worse experience than flying in a low cost) with essentially the same concept of paying for extras. At least Ryanair (which even shares the same color scheme) doesn’t have us put the luggate in the hold, or drive the truck to the plane (well, probably because they wouldn’t be allowed).
I mostly travel with a backpack / don’t like airplane food (well, 30 years ago it could be good) / don’t drink on planes, so why should I sponsor the ones who do wish to do so?
On what I could see, Flag carriers (BA / United), have more expensive seat selections than the low costs (for routes of similar duration).
I do find Low costs have significantly improved the situation en europe: So many point to point routes are available (flag carriers tend to use hub and spoke), people can travel for less (people who couldn’t afford going abroad, or maybe just to Blackpool, can now go to nicer destinations).
The thing that really irritates me still is still (but that’s not necessarily specific to low costsr), trying to trick us into:
1) currency conversion – often just tries to trick you into doing the conversion for you
2) insurance (buttons / website design obviously made to lure you into purchasing)
