Lowcost airlines are here to stay
By Darren Cronian on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006

Well, this is my last blog entry until next Monday, and the first time in 16 months that I have not blogged for such a long period – you might have read in yesterday’s blog entry, that I am going camping to the Lake District, and unfortunately, the weather doesn’t look too promising.

Low-cost airlines are here to stay

Anyway, I wanted to have a little rant, and I am sure that people will disagree with me, especially those directly involved in the travel industry, but why is it that certain sections in the travel industry, are trying to “shoot down” low cost airlines?

It appears to me that those that are struggling because of low cost airlines can’t change, or won’t change and instead feel the need to get involved in scare mongering. Yes, security is of paramount importance, but why would security be worse when flying with the likes of EasyJet or Ryanair, rather than British Airways.

I’ve flown with British Airways, and whilst there is no doubt that your journey is much more pleasant because of the on-board entertainment, and quality of the food, the check-in security is just as stringent on BA than it is with Jet2.com who I have used many times in the past.

Just because your paying £50 instead of £150 for a flight it doesn’t mean that your security will be affected – I do think though that the price of flights could increase slightly due to the additional security checks, and the every increasing price of oil, but whilst the low cost airlines might have to increase their prices, so will the likes of BA, Virgin, etc. etc.


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4 responses to “Lowcost airlines are here to stay”

Lee Harrison(owner Select World Travel Malvern) | 15 August, 2006 at 9:31 am

It’s not a problem with security Darren, It’s a problem of Security with your Booking, and this week is a Classic Example. Tapestry Holidays ceased trading at the same time that New security measures were announced at airports. Approx 1,500 people were abroad in Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Morocco, Oman when Tapestry Holidays announced that they could no longer carry on. All of those people in resort and abroad at the time of the collapse were covered by the Atol Bond that Tapestry had in place, so everybodies holidays carried on as planned and flew back to the UK at the end of their holiday on Sunday 13th of August and a certain amount who still have a week left will be flown home on Sunday the 20th of August. Tapestry also had approx 7,500 forward bookings, again covered by their Atol Bond and those people will be able to claim a full refund from either the Atol Bond or if they paid Tapestry direct using a Credit card from their service provider.
When Select World Travel in Malvern heard of the collapse on Thursday afternoon, emergency plans were put into place to help those people who had booked to travel at the week-end ( And we had a lot!) and find them replacement holidays. Specialist Tour operators were fantastic, and took new bookings and made sure that all Tickets were sent out, even though they knew they would have to wait a few days after people had travelled before they received their payment from ourselves. Most of these were AITO specialist Operators and I would in particular like to thank Exclusive Escapes, Cachet Travel, Sunvil, Classic Collection Holidays and Anatolian Sky for their dedication and outstanding service in helping our clients with their new holidays

At least 10,000 Bookings have been affected by Tapestry’s Demise, but every one of them protected by the Atol Bond and the back up of Travel Agencies and responsible Tour Operators around the Country.

God Knows how many people suffered by BAA cancelling 30% of Flights this week both Long and Short Haul and would have made seperate Flight and Hotel bookings and not had any Protection for their holiday plans and will not gain any refund if they self-packaged their holiday.

A Final brief point, a client returned recently from Cyprus with Olympic Holidays, She announced that they had suffered severe delays at Larnaca airport because of the amount of Lebanese refugees and the Repatriation of British subjects to Cyprus, meaning flights had been comandeered and delays of 24 hours or more were being endured. Olympic Holidays immediatly took rooms at the Hilton Hotel and looked after it’s clients, those that had booked direct with Low Cost Airlines, and many had infants with them , were subjected to spending more than 16 hours on the Airport floor.

RANT OVER.
I would

Darren Cronian | 15 August, 2006 at 1:39 pm

Well, my blog entry was about actual security at the airport, nothing to do with ABTA or ATOL approved holidays - that is a subject which, I can see both sides of the coin, and I’ll blog about that next week.

I’m not going to say which company, but it was a large travel organisation, who has said that low cost airlines meant that they are massive holes in our airport security, and I didn’t agree with this companies comments - for legal reasons I chose not to name the company (I’ve already had one warning from a company not happy with my comments, which could lead me on to another blog entry, but I’ll leave that until next week!)

When I first started to blog - I wasn’t too impressed with travel agents, but I’ve become to realise that smaller independant travel agents, do have good customer care, and want to move with technology - fair play to smaller travel agents, and these will be the travel companies still around in 5 or 10 years time.

Kevin May | 16 August, 2006 at 10:17 am

who is the “large travel company”, Darren? if it was on the record, you can reproduce it on your blog?

Darren Cronian | 20 August, 2006 at 1:49 am

On this occassion, I would rather not say. If you read last Tuesday’s Guardian, the article was in that newspaper. [sent from my mobile in the rainy lake district]