at what point do you decide that a flight ticket is 'worth it' ?

Murphy_The_Cat

dpassmore wrote: »

Hopefully, the hefty increases will deter people from flying and the airlines may review their pricing strategy, however, in the short term it seems we are going to paying a lot more for flights than we have been used to.

thats quite a trick conundrum.
Reduce usage and you reduce the profitabilty of a flight, so you need to increase ticket prices to restore your profitabilty, which deters some people from flying which sets the wheel in motion again.

dickydonkin

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

thats quite a trick conundrum.
Reduce usage and you reduce the profitabilty of a flight, so you need to increase ticket prices to restore your profitabilty, which deters some people from flying which sets the wheel in motion again.

Or you could look at it the other way - flights are empty - flight needs filling - revenue needs to be generated. The costs to the airline is the same whether that flight is full or empty (although less fuel would be used if empty of course) so the obvious option would be to reduce the price - bums on seats and all that.

Obviously not a viable long term strategy.

If nobody is using a particular route or that route becomes unprofitable - the airline will discontinue that route - something which has happened a lot recently unfortunately.

For sure it is a difficult one, but I can see many people who normally have 2 or more overseas holidays a year reducing the amount they travel by air.

Whatever the implications are in that scenario remains to be seen.

Murphy_The_Cat

dpassmore wrote: »

If nobody is using a particular route or that route becomes unprofitable - the airline will discontinue that route - something which has happened a lot recently unfortunately.

I imagine that this is something that will happen more and more with the Airlines consolidating into one of the 'big groups'.

It surely won't be long before numerous airports offer 2 choices -- the 'low cost' airlines to shorthaul destinations, and a glorified air taxi service where 'say' KLM shuttle people backwards and forwards all day from (say) Leeds/Bradford to their hub in Amsterdam, but the airports no longer have any long haul offerings at all.**

I realise that this is already happening, I can simply see the process being accelerated.

dickydonkin

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I imagine that this is something that will happen more and more with the Airlines consolidating into one of the 'big groups'.

It surely won't be long before numerous airports offer 2 choices -- the 'low cost' airlines to shorthaul destinations, and a glorified air taxi service where 'say' KLM shuttle people backwards and forwards all day from (say) Leeds/Bradford to their hub in Amsterdam, but the airports no longer have any long haul offerings at all.**

I realise that this is already happening, I can simply see the process being accelerated.

I agree.

I suspect that there will be many more cost cutting measures in the years to come.

What I hope we won't be saying in the future is:

"Remember the days when we used to get free alcohol and meals on a flight"?

We are getting there now and I can really see a time when getting free meals and drinks on a flight will seem as incredulous as when we recall that smoking also used to be allowed on an aircraft.

I suspect that full service on flights will be confined to the premium cabins in the future.

Murphy_The_Cat

I've not had 'free' booze on a flight for years and I've never missed it.

Lets be honest, nothing in life is free, its simply paid for in another manner

dickydonkin

Lets be honest, nothing in life is free, its simply paid for in another manner

You're certainly not wrong there!

Coolhandluke

I have found that once I get a good deal that this becomes my benchmark when I go looking again but always struggle to find anything that matches.
Flights across the Atlantic are now double what I paid 2 years ago :-(