[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Lucida]The Entire Coach Cabin As A Blue Light Special[/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]
[/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]Forget Fares! We'll Sell Timeshares In The Cabin!
(And We'll Lose Our Shirts Doing It, Too)
[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]...Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of myself, Bubbles, your in-flight Senior Sales Associate, welcome aboard Air Buy-It-Now... [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]"...For take-off, we ask passengers who purchased the optional reclining seat feature to put their seatbacks in the full upright and locked position. When we reach a safe cruising altitude, and the captain, er, Cockpit Sales Director, turns off the seatbelt light, we'll be passing through the cabin with today's Blue-Sky Specials...[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]"...In addition to Coke, Sprite, Ginger Ale, and fruit juice, ($2 each, plus a deposit on the plastic cup) we've got some other super merchandise you can order on today's flight, including specials on term life insurance, condos in Costa Rica, washer-dryers, and the latest in polyester sportswear just in from China. For you married guys who're running off on a tawdry week-end in 'Lauderdale with some bimbo half your age, you can ease your conscience by coming home from your "business trip" with a genuine artificial mink stole for Mama. One look, and she'll forget to ask about that stink of cheap perfume all over your clothes. Just see Fast Eddie up here in the front of the cabin for details. And don't forget to ask him about this week's special on knock-off Rolexes, too... We take Visa, Master Card, and Discover...[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]"...Finally, remember that Lavatory Tokens are available for $1 and can be obtained by pushing your Sales Associate call button... Now, sit back, try to relax within the 29-inch seat pitch you're trapped in for the next four hours, but remember that Air Buy-It-Now offers coupons for great discounts at storefront chiropractors all around the country..."[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]Last year is was merger-mania. This year, there's a new trendy dogma bubbling up in the world of aviation reporting...[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]Airline Cabins - The Wings of K-Mart. It's the A La Carte airplane cabin, a.k.a. selling everything as an extra-cost option. The buzz going around is that airlines, which supposedly can't make it on ticket revenues alone, will begin looking for "ancillary revenues" by charging for baggage, seat assignment, soda, etc., and then look for other things to sell hapless passengers once they finally get strapped - trapped - into their seats. Want a bag checked? Extra. Want a pillow? Extra. Want a seat assignment? Pony up. Want a soda? $3 please. But it's going to go beyond that to a new dimension, according to some sources - the incarnation of the entire airplane cabin as a flying Blue Light Special.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]To read the current stories, all breathlessly trying to jump on the bandwagon, it all sounds like it's a done deal - air travelers will become air-shoppers. They note that some airlines - but, not major carrier systems - have actually started charging for that first piece of checked luggage. Therefore, according to the parrots in the media, every airline will be nickel-and-diming customers for everything before long. There's no question about it, according to what we're reading, this is the future.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]It's not.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]Here's a flash: there's a limit to the last-minute extortion that's possible within the context of the US airline system. Not only that, but there's a limit to the amount and scope of junk that can be peddled on a one, two, or even three hour flight. But that's not considered in most of the media reporting. The model du jour for the media is Europe's Ryan Air, a carrier that many of these reporters probably had never heard of a year ago. It may work in Europe, but this is the Colonies, with a fundamentally different marketplace. [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]The latest see-it's-true centerpiece in these Ryanesque stories tends to be Skybus. Missing in the majority of the reporting is any hard discussion whether the Skybus business model makes a lick of sense or not. All that's seems to be important is the come-on of $10 seats that are supposedly transformed into instant profitability by slapping advertising on the overhead bins and hitting up passengers for $2 Diet Cokes. [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]Aside from the fact that every Skybus seat that's sold at $10, $25 and $50 to Burbank represents a cost deficit that the other seats sold on the aircraft have to make up for, "frills" like bag checking and seat assignment are not a huge cost disadvantage for giant airline systems - which also have giant revenue streams - like United, American, or jetBlue. Furthermore, Skybus selling these as extras isn't the land-office revenue avalanche the media makes it out to be. Then there's the brilliance to schedule 25 minute ground time on 4-hour flight segments, and hire flight attendants at $9 an hour, assuming that they'll get rich on the 20-cent commission on every can of soda pop they sell during the flight. [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]The Skybus "model" - if you can call it that - is essentially a second-tier transportation curiousity that attracts net-new air travelers by shifting existing discretionary dollars from other applications. The open question is whether Skybus can divert enough consumers from Columbus-area Home Depots to make it work.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]It's Travel - Not A "Retail Experience." Another facts-not-in-evidence assumption sometimes suggested is that significant ancillary revenue can be captured by hawking stuff both inside and outside the airplane cabin - enough to make fares real, real cheap, even at a loss, but making up the difference on the volume of kitsch sold in the cabin.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]The belief seems to be that flight attendants who are paid burger-flipping wages can be transformed into latter-day Willy Lomans, pushing everything from veggie-wraps to life insurance on hapless passengers sitting in the coach cabin. A questionable concept at best. The airliner cabin is a travel environment - not a retail environment. And to buy into the lore that this type of sideshow revenue will be the magic path to lower air fares puts one on the call list as a potential buyer for the Brooklyn Bridge. Not in this country.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]In The US - Competition Is Demanding Value Upgrades. Regardless of some events to the contrary, the hard trend in the US, particularly in the LCC sector, is moving away from bare-bones product offerings.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]In fact, the most pressing challenge facing Southwest today is that they're competing with LCCs like jetBlue, AirTran, and Frontier (not to mention re-structured comprehensive network carriers such as Delta) that are offering a higher value-to-cost product perception - things like seat assignment, free snacks (nutritional value notwithstanding) and inflight entertainment - at the same fares. Taking a gander at comparative market load factors at airports like PHL, IAD, and DEN will at least anecdotally validate this. [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]If WN is going to attain and maintain revenue share in some very key markets, they will need to at least add seat assignment to their product. And if they tried to even partially adopt the pay-for-everything lunacy being played out by Skybus, they'd be cut to ribbons in the competitive marketplace. [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Ariel, Lucida]The problem here is that the media has seen one tree and assumes it's a forest. In reality, it's more like a financial desert. [/FONT]
