Yet another aviation thread.

Quote: Pacomartin

It makes me wonder how much people really care about getting the rock bottom price.

Just as with a trip to Vegas, a hotel room or buffet discount or whatever is only part of the expense which will include shopping, teen age arcade, movies, etc.

A airplane ticket that is cheap, a fed ex for your luggage, a seat that fully reclines to pure horizontal can all be options, travelers value different things. Cheap long term parking at a distant airport has its value if you know you will return to that distant airport.

Sardine packing is okay if its a short flight and the lusty broad in the next seat suggests you slide over and rest your head on her breasts.

Speed of loading, number of brat-trolleys, fights over the "overhead" are all subjective factors.

I'll take low priced, fast on/off seat wherein I have to FedEx my one and only bag anyday, particularly if its a No Brats flight.

Quote: Pacomartin

The 767 had first flight on September 26, 1981 (cabin width 16') and the 757 had it's first flight on February 19, 1982 (cabin width 11.6'). The "Advanced Supersonic Transport" was nearly dead and air travel was deregulated. The 2-3-2 seating on the 767 was only one more per row than the 3-3 seating on the 757. The designers were not expecting supersonic travel to replace these aircraft and turn them into freight planes.

Aircraft have a long gestation period. the 757/767 fraternal twins were developed in the 70s. By then 1) the ill-conceived private-government partnership to design the American SST had failed, 2) Several oil shocks took place and 3) Concorde was failing commercially and 4) noise restrictions were not getting any more lenient.

Naturally Boeing was not looking at throwing money into an SST-shaped black hole.

But suppose fuel prices had remained more stable and noise restrictions not been so harsh. Maybe Concorde might have sold 100 units over ten years. In reality it also didn't fly supersonic over Europe, but what if it had been able to? Anyway, with 100 Concordes the world over, a second-generation SST would have had a good chance of being developed either by the Anglo-French consortium or the wider European one that is Airbus, or by Boeing or McD or even Lockheed.

Quote:

You would not expect most people to do the drive for $15 a ticket (times 4 family members) as it wouldn't be worth the bother. I was surprised that almost nobody would drive an hour to save as much as 33% of the ticket prices for each family member. Their biggest concern was the one flight per day. Even though flights are very seldom cancelled (they are usually late). Secondary concerns were the drive time, the budget airline, flying to a smaller airport in Orlando, etc.

Those are reasonable concerns. What if the flight is cancelled? At a major airport chances are you can take another one later. The one hour drive might become much longer, besides how much will it cost to keep your car parked there for your trip? Many people take cabs when going on vacation, what would a cab cost? Questions like that are why Interjet and Volaris fled Toluca as soon as possible.

Quote:

It makes me wonder how much people really care about getting the rock bottom price.

I point to the rise of the low cost and lately ultra-low cost airlines. Not only in the US, but in Latin America, Europe and Asia.

But no market is ever monolithic.

Quote: Nareed

Those are reasonable concerns. What if the flight is cancelled? At a major airport chances are you can take another one later. The one hour drive might become much longer, besides how much will it cost to keep your car parked there for your trip? Many people take cabs when going on vacation, what would a cab cost? Questions like that are why Interjet and Volaris fled Toluca as soon as possible.

You asked me when is enough enough. I was merely saying that people value a lot of things more important than money. AS we have discussed all three airports in NYC are being considered for massive renovation (as are airports in London, Mexico City, Rio, etc). The question is what will people tolerate as an interim measure.

As you suggested flight frequency is very important, especially when the total daily numbers get very low.

If you look at ANTHROPOMETRIC DATA data, you see that the top 5% of men have over a 25.4" buttock to knee length. Allowing for seat width and not even accounting for reclining seats, you can see that 28" is pretty uncomfortable.
Buttock-Knee Length (5% to 95% percentile)
Men 21.3" - 25.4"
Women 20.5" - 24.4"

If airlines are allowed to put three more rows of seats in an A320 (actually 2.5 rows) then how low will seat pitch go? Logically, I don't see how to put 195 people in an A320 without having a third of them standing.

Quote: Pacomartin

You asked me when is enough enough. I was merely saying that people value a lot of things more important than money.

Right. My apologies.

But it seems then the money comparison holds up better comparing the exact same end points for a given trip. This gets rid of confounders like convenience, transport to the airport, etc.

Even this won't be exact, as Southwest does a whole lot of business at Dallas Love Field as opposed to DFW, and I know they also use other alternate airports at some routes.

Oh well.

I can see the day when a super-ultra-low-cost carrier's safety card will have instructions on how to pay for oxygen from the complimentary oxygen masks, should the plane suffer sudden depressurization. The masks would still be freely available, but if you want to keep breathing you have to pay. Maybe you could avoid any risk of hypoxia by pre-paying a $0.50 fee on booking for emergency oxygen insurance. Of course, you won't use it on 99.9999% of the time.

Quote: Nareed

But it seems then the money comparison holds up better comparing the exact same end points for a given trip. This gets rid of confounders like convenience, transport to the airport, etc.

Yes, but it is difficult to make direct comparisons. In some cases the airline offers economy and economy plus but it is not as common on domestic flights. So you are comparing true service with some hypothetical service with more leg rooms, drinks, better food, more flight attendents, softer seats, etc. It is difficult to see what people will actually pay for better service.

Quote: Nareed

Even this won't be exact, as Southwest does a whole lot of business at Dallas Love Field as opposed to DFW, and I know they also use other alternate airports at some routes.

Southwest built their reputation partly on the alternative airport philosophy. But today they carry more domestic passengers than anyone else, so with prominent exceptions like DFW, Houston International, Chicago O'Hare and Miami International they serve most of the large airports. These four airports have very convenient alternatives in Love Field, Houston Hobby, Chicago Midway, and Fort Lauderdale.

Ryan Air in Europe has built their business model largely around using obscure alternative airports.



Allegiant Airlines which offers no connecting flights, is probably the leader now in flying to obscure airports. In some cases they are the only airline (or one of two) with commercial flights to a given airport.

Quote: Pacomartin

Allegiant Airlines which offers no connecting flights, is probably the leader now in flying to obscure airports. In some cases they are the only airline (or one of two) with commercial flights to a given airport.

Living in Las Vegas, I love Allegiant Airlines. Direct flights to many cities in the west that would require multiple stops with other airlines. The down side is only two flights a week and when mechanical problems happen there are rarely backup equipment available.

The justification for a mega airport in Istanbul eludes me. It is only 1560 miles from London Heathrow. With Dubai building a new mega airport it seems as if they will capture most of the traffic from the Americas to India and East Asia that does not already go nonstop or went via London/Frankfurt/Amsterdam/Paris. Dubai also seems to have most of the Australia to Europe traffic that traditionally went via Singapore.

In about five years planes will exist that can economically connect nonstop nearly any major airport pair on the planet.

Quote: Pacomartin

The justification for a mega airport in Istanbul eludes me. It is only 1560 miles from London Heathrow. With Dubai building a new mega airport it seems as if they will capture most of the traffic from the Americas to India and East Asia that does not already go nonstop or went via London/Frankfurt/Amsterdam/Paris. Dubai also seems to have most of the Australia to Europe traffic that traditionally went via Singapore.

In about five years planes will exist that can economically connect nonstop nearly any major airport pair on the planet.

Interesting.
I book Turkey a lot but not to go to IST but through IST Istanbul
The destination I fly most of my business travelers in Turkey to is ADB Izmir

Quote: terapined

Interesting.
I book Turkey a lot but not to go to IST but through IST Istanbul
The destination I fly most of my business travelers in Turkey to is ADB Izmir

I was surprised to see Atatürk Airport edged ahead of Frankfurt Airport this year. But Turkey is almost the same population as Germany. The Istanbul airport dominates the Turkish airports and many people like your clients are headed to other parts of Turkey. London and Paris have alternative airports. So it is only 8.3% smaller than Paris CDG and may pass it in a few years. Perhaps in a decade it will surpass any other airport in Europe.

World Rank
6. London Heathrow Airport
12. Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport
15. Istanbul Atatürk Airport
17. Frankfurt Airport
22. Amsterdam Airport

But Dubai has already passed London Heathrow as the world's busiest international hub, and the government is spending $83 billion on a second airport only 25 miles away that can carry up to 240 million passengers per year. Then there are competing airports in Abu Dhabi and in Qatar. Turkey doesn't have that kind of money. Hell, Europe doesn't have that kind of money to spend on infrastructure projects.

Quote: Pacomartin

Yes, but it is difficult to make direct comparisons. In some cases the airline offers economy and economy plus but it is not as common on domestic flights. So you are comparing true service with some hypothetical service with more leg rooms, drinks, better food, more flight attendents, softer seats, etc. It is difficult to see what people will actually pay for better service.

You can determine what kinds of fares are more popular in identical or nearly identical routes. But I agree it's not as simple as it sounds.

Take the MEX-Cd. Carmen route. Just about every plane on it is packed both ways. But as AM and Interjet both offer about 3 flights per day, you can't draw any meaningful data from it, even though Interjet is slightly cheaper.

Let's go back. Many aviation advocates and airline apologists (no offense), make it a point to say conditions in coach have deteriorated as a result of people preferring lower fares. One can see their point. a two-class A-320 with seating for 160 or so passengers is cheaper to operate and produces more revenue than one with seating for 140, provided you get enough load per flight on average. Ergo the airlines pack their planes in order to be able to afford lower fares. And of course the same argument applies to charging fees for bags, food and even blankets and pillows.

The second part of the argument is that people keep paying for those fares and fees.

Now, the logical progression of this argument is that airlines offering the lowest fares would do better, fees or no fees. That is, more people would go to the flights with lower fares, and these flights would have higher average passenger load factors.

But the market isn't monolithic. For example, in our company the unofficial policy is to fly Interjet. it is cheaper than Aeromexico, but not than Viva or possibly Volaris. The policy is not "fly the cheapest fares."

My policy when I pay is to spend as little money as possible for what I want. This consistently translates to purchasing a package of hotel and flight, consistently taking Interjet and a Downtown Vegas hotel. But this works because I'm no averse to extending my vacation for days, or leaving from Toluca. If I were, I'd likely be taking Volaris (daily flights), or lately maybe Southwest and making 1 or 2 stops along the way.