Consistency the better option in economic downturn

Dear All,

First post her eon V-FLyer after 2 years of enthusiastic following. A big thank you to many an interesting discussion! Just a quick question, as wondering as to peoples views.

In this current economic climate where everyone is struggling and airlines need to be planning for survival do you agree that consistency is the best option.

For Example:

Rather than randomly cutting flights which mainly seem to be mid-week (less popular days for flying) why not cut flights on very low demand days for the entire season, (maybe excluding major holidays) so that passengers can be more certain that their flight will be operating rather than worrying about if the flight will get cancelled due to low demand.

Furthermore for flights such as Chicago which operate only once daily surely it would be better to operate as much of the schedule as is possible i.e. very few if any cancellations of flights because the business traveller is still looking for reliability and frequency something which virgin no longer have IMO on routes such as Chicago because of the constant cancellation of flights. However routes which are served more than daily such as LAX can afford for low demand cuts because there will be at least one flight per day.

Surely this makes better sense:

Keep passenger loyalty
Keep reputation for being reliable (ish)
Keep vital business travellers

Just curious as to your thoughts...

[Nottingham Nick]

Welcome to V-Flyer.

It must be a very difficult call when deciding which flights to cut.

Whatever option they choose, it won't suit everyone.

There must be lots of factors to consider - including projected loads, cargo factors etc. etc. I assume they will also look at how they can least inconvenience pax who have already booked - do they have alternative destinations close by that they can offer instead? Do they have codeshare flights they can shift pax to?

Like others, I have been very been very critical of the beancounters in the recent past, but I don't envy them the choices they have to make in the current situation.

Nick

As well as all the conisderations Nick outlined, I think you'll find they are trying to work around the extremely valuable and problematic issue of slots at Heathrow.

During each season (there are two each year, summer and winter), all airlines at slot controlled airports must operate at least 80% of all services for a particular slot to automatically receive it the following year. This isn't just 80% over the whole season, it is actually broken down to the day. So for example, if Virgin removed the Tuesday VS19 flight for the whole season (and as a result operate less than 80% of Tuesday VS19 flights during the summer), they would only get slots for 6 days of operation a week for the summer season in 2010, and not the tuesday slot.

Therefore Virgin must balance out the need to cancel low yield services with maintaining enough services to automatically qualify for each and every slot next year. The result is admittedly a frustrating and sometimes confusing situation for the passenger.

The EU has actually put forward legislation to suspend the so called '80-20' slot rule for the summer season this year, which will allow airlines to cancel services without the risk of losing slots. This would let Virgin cancel entire routes and/or services on repeated week days.

AF

Welcome ryand and an interesting first post [y].

I agree with the replies and with you, hmmm, which sort of means there's no easy answer. One point that you make with which I agree is regularity and the business traveller, you use Chicago as an example and I posted a similar point a while back about how business travellers want to reliably know whether if they delay a trip or bring forward a leg of a trip the airline has an option.

Suspending random flights based on load, cargo and other factors does rather lower a traveller's faith in their ability to travel flexibly, and this can result in a lower perception of the airline overall by them and their travel managers.

Thanks for the replies, i didnt realise that the 80% rule is over the day! Thats ridiclious. So not only does Virgin lose out because they have to oeprate unprofitable flights to keep slots but the passenger now really cant be sure if their flight is going to operate. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, but VS has spent years building up a large busness traveller market and i cant help but fear for the loyalty of those PAX if this hit and miss flight operation continues. I know leisure PAX are also very important for virgin but lesiure passengers can be much more flexible than business travellers.

quote:Originally posted by ryand
I know leisure PAX are also very important for virgin but lesiure passengers can be much more flexible than business travellers.


I think I know what you're trying to say in terms of managing the business for the future, but I don't agree with that statement. Leisure travel is often less flexible both in terms of fare levels and time and organisation.

Paul

I know where your coming from pjh, i just meant that if a flight to say Orlando is cancelled then the passengers need to change their holiday plans, which is of course an inconvenience, however if a business passenger had their flight cancelled they would have to either use another carrier or go another day and potentially lose business or inconvenience their business contacts which could possibly mess up their week.