Can low fares airlines compete in long distance flights? In the history low fares airlines have been succesful in short and medium term flights. If you take a look at routes from/to popular european tourist cities you can find many low fares airlines competing and many of them are still making profit but there is very limited supply of low fares long distance flights. The main reason is that long distance airlines get most cost savings in fast and efficient use of airplanes and personnel. In short and medium term flights it really makes difference wheather the plane and crew are at the airport 30 or 50 minutes between two 1 hour flights. When we are talking about flights over 8 hours this difference becomes less important and cost advantage is less important.
Norwegian low fares airline Norwegian Air Shuttle AS believes that they can get cost advantage using new Boeing 787 Dreamliners that need less fuel than older planes. Unfortunately the story of Boeing 787 Dreamliner is full of technical challenges and it's not yet certain that Norwegians can start their long distance cheap flights in May 2013 as they have planned. Norwegians seem to believe that Boeing can solve battery problems of Dreamliner and they are selling their Stockholm-New York, Oslo-New York, Stockholm-Bangkok and Oslo-Bangkok flights at norwegian.com. It's interesting to see if also long distance flights become playground of carries like Ryanair and EasyJet. When can we see first London Stansted-US flights with GBP 99/one way.
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