News: European no-frills airlines not interested in providing connections
Flights > News > # 956 (15/09/2006)
European based no-frills airlines have said that they have no plans to launch schemes to enable passengers to make “combo” bookings.
The “flights combo” system, which has been pioneered by Singapore-based budget carrier Tiger Airways, works by allowing passengers to make one booking for a combined journey, instead of having to go through the hassle of doing two separate bookings. For example, if you wanted to fly from Inverness to Rome with Easyjet, you could buy one ticket rather than separate tickets from Inverness to London Gatwick, and then from Gatwick to Rome.
Tony Davis, founder of Tiger Airways explained that the move was an acknowledgement that independent travellers were increasingly making their own arrangements to book their own connecting flights with no-frills airlines.
“ Our flights combo system enables passengers to save time during the booking process. This is still a very different scenario to the hub and spoke system operated by the traditional airlines. We have not adjusted any of our flight timings to encourage people to make connections, and passengers are still responsible for reclaiming their baggage and checking it in for their onward flight,” he said
London Stansted in particular has seen a substantial growth in the number of passengers making no-frills flights transfers, but Easyjet chief executive, Andrew Harrison, said his airline had no interest in encouraging passengers down this route.
“ Easyjet is a point-to-point airline, and even though we know that some of our passengers make these connections, it is not something which we want to actively encourage. The whole basis of low-cost is to keep it simple, we don't see any way that we can make this work.”
Ryanair has also dismissed the scheme due to the high administration costs involved.
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