Low-cost carriers
have also encouraged business passengers across Europe to sample easyJet and when they do so they like the experience and the great value and they tend to stay with us.” The airline claims to save corporates 30 per cent off their travel budgets. Asked her thoughts on Ryanair's move
into the corporate market, McCall says, “It's easy to say you're going for business travellers, but we know it's hard work. It's been hard won every step of the way and we're only scratching the surface.”
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effective way is fundamental to our strategy of servicing the higher yield business travel market, and our move to become a Light Ticketing carrier within Amadeus is a key step in driving adoption and bookings from agents.” Light Ticketing enables users to book six times quicker on the GDS than direct with the airline because the airlines all have different websites selling different things in different ways, says Amadeus' Golledge. “Time is money,” he says. “Agents need
automation and familiarity. TMCs are so used to using the Amadeus system that it’s second nature.”
Business figures Low-cost carriers have grown to the extent that they now enjoy 26 per cent market share worldwide – 40 per cent in Europe – with Ryanair and easyJet dominating the skies both in the UK and further afield. Meanwhile, overseas carriers such as Spanish airline Vueling (which together with British Airways and Iberia forms the IAG Group) and Norwegian are also making an impression. The latter has established a significant base at London Gatwick, operating over 30 routes from the airport, and launches long-haul services to the US this summer. Ryanair carried 81 million passengers in
TOP OF THE POPS
Top 10 low-cost carriers in the UK by departures (May 2014) Position 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10
Airline EasyJet Ryanair Jet2
Monarch Wizz Air
Norwegian
Frequency YOY change 14,528 9,727 2,210 2,120 976 941
6% 2%
19% 8% 8%
Germanwings 621 Vueling Pegasus AirBaltic
236 85 57
23% 69% 2% 8%
39% Source: OAG NB: OAG does not class Flybe as a low-cost carrier
2013, 22 per cent of which it claims are business travellers, and around one in five (12 million) of easyJet's 62 million annual passengers fly on business, a figure up 44 per cent from 2010. Enhancements such as fast-track security, inclusive fares and allocated seating have played big roles in easyJet's impressive growth, says chief executive officer, Carolyn McCall. Allocated seating was “a heretical thing to put on the table at that point in time, but it is the single best thing we've done for passengers,” she says. Inclusive fares, launched last autumn,
combine extras such as checked luggage and seat selection in a one-step booking transaction and are only available through GDS channels and other booking systems connected to the easyJet API. McCall adds, “Recession and austerity
The right routes It might be an obvious point, but easyJet's network is key to its appeal among business travellers. It operates more than 600 routes between over 130 airports, and claims that over 300 million Europeans live within an hour's drive of an easyJet airport, more than any other airline. This spring it used slots purchased from Flybe to launch flights from its largest base at London Gatwick to Brussels and Strasbourg, as well as Paris Charles de Gaulle, Jersey and Newcastle. The airline has also eyed up a move into
Heathrow, which it “genuinely considered” for the launch of its Moscow flights. Adding services from an expanded Heathrow would depend on the cost, but McCall points out that its low-cost model doesn't preclude it from operating at hub airports. “We have ten planes at Charles de Gaulle
and we're the number two airline at Amsterdam Schiphol. The key to us is the price,” she says. For all Ryanair's efforts to clean up its image, make its fares more widely available and introduce business-friendly products and services, its success in breaking the corporate market will ultimately depend on the strength of its network and much has been made of the secondary airports to which it typically operates. “They fly to a few primary airports but
not many, so it's an entire change of their network strategy if they're to be relevant to business travellers,” says easyJet's McCall. The Guild of Travel Management
Companies' Paul Wait is in agreement. “Ryanair will need to adjust its network offering and fly to the main business destinations in Europe in order to challenge the existing carriers.” Ryanair's Kane says the airline is intent
on growing traffic on such routes, “but it doesn't happen overnight”. Flexibility and frequency of schedule are
key factors in their inclusion in corporate travel programmes, accoding to Ian Allan Travel's O'Neill who believes airlines using periphery airports will struggle for corporate take-up. “There is no doubt that business
travellers consider Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh
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