These airlines help offer a cheap way to be able to get to the beach, historical area, and Interesting cities. We see in Belobaba (2003) report that EasyJet, Europe’s leading low-cost airline. Now what helped it become such a big name in low cost air travel in Europe? Going to EasyJets website, they attempt to explain how they work. We see they broke it down to three things to make them a low cost airlines; The first thing is it is a ticket less airline, this cuts cost of paper and printing. The next thing they do is efficient use of airports; this means EasyJet can make the most of its time. EasyJet also made a few deals with airports cutting landing fees. The last thing EasyJet has done to make its airline so low cost is there's no such thing as a free lunch. This helps as it cut costs of food, and may help the airlines earn money on the food they sell.
In Belobaba (2003) report we see the U.S. situation with airlines. The report starts off talking about the 11/09/01 incident. Were after the attacks on the twin tower, the whole thing had negatively affected the volume of business travel and 12.5% lower than in the preceding year. The report goes on talking about the growth of low cost airlines. Reduced willingness on the part of business travellers and tourist to pay the higher airfares charged by network carriers. Also some interesting points in the report are.
“In the US, low-fare airlines have exhibited slow but steady growth since
deregulation, but low-fare carriers as a group accounted for less than 7% of US
domestic air passengers in 1991, compared to 81% by Major network carriers [The
remaining 12% was carried by smaller regional and local carriers]. Low-fare
carriers grew more rapidly in the US through the 1990s, to the point that they
carried 20% of all US domestic passengers as a group in 2002.”
To look at a more world aspect of tourism we see in Christianto (2003) article that in 2000, there were 7.58 million passengers, but the number increased to 8.27 million in 2001 and to 8.96 million in 2002. Also according to the article the figures are expected to reach 9.65 million in this year and 10.34 million next year. It goes on talking about the price war. A war between the more high class big Airlines, and many of the airlines that offer cheaper tickets. In this war they are trying to set a floor price were airlines may not go under this price. This is due to the high numbers of passengers going to low cost airlines to travel.
We are starting to see that with these low cost airlines the bigger airlines are having problems holding on to their customers. Now there are airline companies that are forced to lower their price to compete with these low cost airlines. We see British airways as one of those companies. British airways have recently launched a series of cheap flights.
In the future there is a big possibility that all these big airlines will have to lower their prices lowered. As theses low cost airlines seem to be taking all the possible clients away from these big airlines. There is also too say that these big airlines are holding on to their passengers for long distance travels. As these airlines are more comfortable and more advanced the travellers like them more. As if you have to spend a long time in an airplane you would the best situation.
There are only a few low cost airlines that are set up. The number of airlines in general isn’t too high. We see in the U.S. for low cost airlines you have you have only two or three. As it’s about the same for Europe as we see airlines like EasyJet, Ryan Air, Go, Buzz and only a few others. As for other areas it was hard to find information on cheap airlines. I found that in Asia there is one called Singapore airlines. This airlines in between a big airlines and a low cost one.
Europe seems to big the biggest point of low cost airlines. In Christianto (2003) report we see that travel between Europe has been seeing some serious growth. This I feel alone show that with low cost airline, there comes more tourism. There is also to say that in Europe it is come for people to move around for business and travel.
Conclusion;
I feel it is hard to say that tourism is affected by low cost airlines. All sorts of people travel for various reasons. Take England for example, you can see that in an English university a courses may have at least 4 students that are not from the U.K.. The student may travel a few times back to their home country. This would count as a passenger, and thus in the data I have would count as a possible tourist. Thus making it hard to determine if the data is correct or full of error. Also if you consider that as human error, there is still the high percentage that travel for business purposes. The question may be altered to “Low cost airline; Do they create more possibility for people to travel?”
Well since I was give the question above, I feel that with continued growth of low-cost carriers there will be possibility of more tourism. I feel that yes, these low cost airline do affect the rate of tourism. I believe this, as it helps make travel possible, for those who cannot afford the bigger airlines. As in this report there’s also a big number of business travels that use these airlines, thus making the rates hard to see if the people travelling for business, or travelling for leisure.
So yes I feel that these low cost airlines do cause tourism to rise. So they do affect tourism in a positive way. As we see the big airline do try to adapt to these now competitors. The big airlines are still in a good run as they have there plus. Yet I feel that if these big airlines were around that the rate of tourism would be much lower.
References;
British Airways. (2003). Can be obtained at; http://www.britishairways.co.uk
Easy Jet. (2003). How We Offer Such Low Fares. Can be obtained at;
Ryanair. (2003). Progress Report. Can be obtained at; http://www.ryanair.co.uk
Anonymous. (2003). Two UK low-cost air lines open up new direct links between North-East England and Geneva. Geneva News. (October 8)
Belobaba, P. (2003) The Airline Industry and Current Challenges. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (November 6).
Christianto, I. (2003). Airlines earn their wings in increasingly crowded skies. The Jakarta Post. (November 6).
Bibliography;
Piga, Claudio A. (2001). Booking and flying Low cost airlines. Nottingham. Nottingham University press.
Grimaldi, Vincent. (2003). Ryanair Slow on Emotion. Brandchannel. (October 20)
