12 years ago I paid £110 to fly (return) from London to Edinburgh. With the cost of inflation etc. you could probably double that nowadays.. Why then have air fares plummeted??
Were the big airlines ripping us off for all of those years??
I would love to here from any of them or, indeed anyone who feels the same or has a logical explanation!!
2006-06-20 21:24:19 · 4 answers · asked by fullyskuttle 1 in Cars & Transportation ➔ Aircraft
Price wars!
As more "discount" airlines move into the market, and offer no-frills travel for rock-bottom prices, all the "legacy" or older airlines need to reduce their prices or risk losing all their customers to the discount airlines. It's one of the big contributors to the financial woes of the US airlines because the discounters don't have the same overhead as the legacy airlines do (pensions, benefits, etc).
At any rate, in the US it's Southwest that first really started the price wars, and RyanAir in the UK. By the way, we weren't getting ripped off per se when prices were higher; airlines did a lot less overbooking, service was a lot better, and airlines were a lot more flexible with their rules. You could bring a lot more baggage with you, and you could change flights easily. We've given up a lot of customer-care type benefits to get these lower prices. And, at least in the US, the airlines' lower revenues sends a ripple through the economy; when airlines file for bankruptcy, they usually offload their pension plans, which means thousands and thousands of workers who'd planned their retirements around a set benefit each month are not going to get it; these retirees are not able to support themselves and the cost comes back to the taxpayers.
2006-06-21 14:43:29 · answer #1 · answered by dcgirl 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's not unusual for airlines to advertise an extremely low price for certain flights, but if you read the really small print at the bottom of the page, you'll find there are only one or two seats on the entire airplane selling at this price, and there are so many restrictions that it's practically imposible to actually make a reservation for them. If you call the airline's ticket agent, I'll bet you'll hear... "I'm sorry, but those seats are already booked"
2006-06-21 12:15:57 · answer #2 · answered by JetDoc 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Airline deregulation in Europe in 1997 caused prices to go down because the govenment was not interfering as much to make it harder for airlines to make a profit. Plus new low cost carrier have made price even lower.
2006-06-25 22:33:59 · answer #3 · answered by Sebastian 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A lot of surveys about low cost carriers on this page : http://www.costkiller.net/cost-cutting-travel.htm
I hope it can help.
2006-06-23 09:47:52 · answer #4 · answered by Cost Killer 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋