IS AIR TRANSPORT STILL A SERVICE?

September 01, 2024

For years, we have been denouncing this mad race to increase the number of booking classes and fares, supposedly to meet the demands of passengers. However, a recent study conducted by Travelport, widely commented on by Déplacements Pros, shows the opposite. I quote from the article: "42% of the respondents feel that airlines' offers have become less adapted to their personal preferences". In other words, too many tariffs kill the perception of prices.

The drift really began with the massive arrival of "low costs" in the aviation landscape. Traditional companies saw them coming with some condescension in predicting their rapid demise, and the opposite happened. Unable to reduce their costs at the level of newcomers, carriers then embarked on a race of imagination to offer prices low enough to be displayed at the top of the list of price comparators. Customers rushed into this infernal slide, and the fare and regulatory offer became totally illegible and disproportionate to the transport capacity. The mad race to lower prices has resulted in a real decline in the quality of services and the erosion of margins to such an extent that for years traditional air transport has lost money.

Little by little, the companies parted ways with their staff, which had certainly become a little overcrowded, to ask customers to do the work themselves in place of their employees. It was all to the benefit as long as the products and the quality of service remained acceptable, but in the end passengers ended up seeing no difference between the "low cost" and the traditional airlines. We hit rock bottom in the 2010s.

And fortunately, we could say, Covid arrived and with it the collapse of air transport, undoubtedly the sector of activity most affected by the pandemic. This has forced players to rethink their model and return to common sense in pricing. Faced with a powerful demand due to the frustration of passengers deprived of travel for two years, fares quickly returned to a normal level and airlines finally made the shift to improve their product. This is how we have seen real progress with many carriers, especially for long-haul flights. But it seems that the growth in transport demand is slowing. The year 2024 will undoubtedly be less favourable than the divine year 2023 during which all the indicators returned to green, with the sole exception of aircraft manufacturing, which was forced to slow down due to a lack of manpower.

So the guilty pleasure of waging a war of price offers is coming back and with it the additional revenue from the sale of services that were once included in the normal price. The imagination in this matter is endless. Anything is good to scrape a little money. These range from checked or unchecked baggage, to access to wifi on board, not to mention boarding priorities, cancellation insurance and now the development of ancillary services with the gradual generalization of the NDC (New Distribution Capability) standard, which multiplies the possibilities of sales. In fact, airlines not only no longer want to remunerate the distribution channel, but are putting themselves in a position to take their activity from travel agents. Except that it's not their job and it's ultimately up to the customers to do the work.

It's time to get back to what air travel should be: a product of the highest quality and unrivalled reliability. The technical part is close to excellence. Airplane accidents have become extremely rare, and mostly due to pilot errors. The same is not true for service. This cannot be left to the use of machines alone. Customers, many of whom are afraid of flying, need human contact. Airline ground agents have deserted airports to be replaced by telephones or check-in kiosks. However, air transport cannot be dehumanised. Customers need clarity in the offer offered to them, 3 to 5 fares per class of service should be more than enough to compare to the more than 100 currently displayed, and personal contact to replace the unbearable connections with machines whether on the phone or in airports.

It may cost a little more, but in the end everyone will benefit, the staff of the companies who will find a new legitimacy and the customers who, as we have seen at the end of Covid, are willing to pay more for a better quality service.