News: More cheap flights to the USA and Canada from Zoom
Flights > News > # 896 (14/08/2006)
Zoom, which currently offers flights to eight Canadian destinations from a host of British airports, are reaping the benefit of a £6 million investment from the Bank of Scotland. The airline are expect to start the first low-cost flights from London Gatwick to New York and San Francisco, with prices from £99 each way exclusive of taxes and charges.
Add to:
Related Airlines:
Related Airports:
Comment:
First things first – ignore the £99 headline figure. That is for a single fare exclusive of taxes and charges. On average, a return trip for example from London to Toronto with Zoom will set you back between £280 and £400 all inclusive, although that is still a good deal cheaper than the average price on any of Zoom’s rivals on this route.
Many commentators have often said that cheap long-haul flights to the USA would never be viable because there are numerous difficulties which make a profitable operation of budget long-haul flights a real challenge. One of the key features of the operation model used by no-frills airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair is the ability to get maximum usage out of their aircraft by turning them around at destination airports as quickly as possible - sometimes being airborne again in as little as 25 minutes. No-frills airlines can also squeeze airports hard for discounted landing fees in exchange for the promise of bringing thousands of customers through their doors, backed by the ability to threaten to move a few miles up the road if a good deal cannot be done.
Airlines wanting to operate long-haul flights have to deal firstly with the slew of regulations which can often restrict their ability to compete against established carriers, whose vested interests are often well guarded by the political elite. The point to point model also becomes much less relevant for long haul flights - passengers landing at Ryanair's remotest airfields can still reach the city the airport claims to serve within a couple of hours at most, and numerous European airports can be used for onward connections to a plethora of alternative cities which can be speedily accessed by road or rail. The same cannot be said for onward travel within the USA - a low-cost flight to New York might be useful for onward travel to Philadelphia or Washington, but trying to reach anywhere outside the northeastern seaboard could result in a journey taking days, not hours.
The established 'legacy' airlines have high frequency route networks which are backed up by a huge number of onward flight connections from the respective hubs they serve, whereas most of Zoom's current flights to Canada only operate once or twice each week. This makes the prospect of visiting multiple cities using internal flights on a different airline within the US and Canada a very unappealing option in the event of any delays. The network airlines also have the benefit of being able to cross subsidise their economy class flights with high-paying business passengers. There are far fewer airports which can handle the larger aircraft used on long-haul flights, compared to the thousands which can cope with the smaller jets used on short hops around Europe, and even if an airline is able to negotiate a very good deal (as Flyglobespan appear to have done at Orlando Sanford), no-frills airlines can’t make the kind of savings they achieve on flights to the Continent. This explains why the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair have not ventured into the North American market.
The two most significant costs which long haul airlines must face are staffing and fuel. Unlike flights within Europe, it is simply not possible to use the same crew on the outbound and the return journey, giving the no-frills airlines relatively little advantage over their competitors. Zoom might be able to keep their fuel costs per passenger low if they maintain high occupancy levels, but they are still having to compete using hand me down aircraft, which will always cost more to run than some of the latest generation jets.
Despite the restrictions imposed on transatlantic flights by the Bermuda II Treaty, there is still a reasonable amount of competition between the different airlines when it comes to price, although service standards can be a great deal more variable and the cheapest flights are often involve making a tedious and time consuming transfer. We've generally found that the British carriers like British Airways and Virgin offer a better inflight experience than their American counterparts, yet many of the cheapest fares are offered by the likes of Delta or Continental.
