The trouble with discount air travel…
6 Jul
Photo Credit: Justin Henry
Reading the recent press regarding Jetstar’s embattled launch into New Zealand is very much reminiscent of the press that came in the days following Jetstar’s Australian debut in 2004. The truth is, they have made some mistakes, as they did in Sydney, with reports of extensive flight delays and heaven forbid, passengers missing out on an All Blacks game due to a flight being overbooked. In fact, even I should have a reason to be disgruntled – soon after purchasing Qantas tickets at full rate for Christchurch to Queenstown return, the handover of Qantas services to Jetstar took place, meaning that I paid over 30% more than the Jetstar regular fare for, well, not much. But I digress.
In the spirit of forgiveness, I’ll say that you really can’t win as a discount airline. Your fares can be one New Zealand dollar a pop, yet I guarantee there will be someone who will complain about having to pay for a can of Coke. Or that pillows and blankets aren’t free. It seems that a lot of the frilly expectations that have developed around the premium carriers have carried over to their spendthrift, discount cousins, while omitting that premium carriers are just as prone to terrible mistakes, too. For example, once, a to-be-unnamed carrier dropped my partner’s family at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport in the deep of Winter, sans luggage. Coats, fuzzy leg-warmers, all gone. Imagine if a plane-load of New Zealanders were dropped off in Queenstown, only lined with the Conchords t-shirts they waltzed onto the plane with. It would be simply curtains.
One would assume that there would be the occasional fan of discount air travel, expecially considering Qantas’ and Air New Zealand’s prices pre-competition, however it seems that every person with 15 seconds of airtime is hell-bent on resisting the allure of cheap fares. Oh yes, these $39 fares from Sydney to Melbourne completely suck! I really loved driving 13 hours in the dark, because there’s nothing like adjusting the internal heating every 10 minutes so you don’t lull yourself into wrapping around a tree. Bloody so-and-so discount airline!
What’s worse is that the older generation seems to link discount travel with something being structurally wrong with the aircraft. A few months ago, I was trying to tell my own mother about how much she would save if she flew an international route via a discount carrier. The response – “Is the plane safe? Can they afford to keep it flying?”. It struck me after years of flying a similar route for twice the price, it just didn’t seem possible that some upstart airline could fly that cheaply. To her credit (of which she deserves plenty), she flew Jetstar this year to Tokyo and is now a convert. I told her to bring a small pillow, blanket, some nibbles and her best friend and off she went, as genki as Harajuku.
And that’s what it’s all about – managing expectations. Foremost – most airlines put a premium on safety and all make mistakes. Across the board, extensive delays and missing All Blacks games is inexcusable (unless it’s in the interests of passenger safety), however this can happen on any carrier. Secondly, some airlines charge $100 return and will throw in salted peanuts, others charge $39 and make you walk across the tarmac. What you pay for is what you get.
managing expectations!! That is the key.
Correct, however each low-cost carrier takes a different approach to this task and the publicity that surrounds them is a reflection of how well they manage said expectations.