Low-fare airlines. Operational shortcomings
FOXTROTS
Fox – sly
Trots – left-leaning (Trotsky) plus its more insalubrious meaning
Foxtrots – leading the industry in a dance.
2005 December 30
Low-fare airlines. Operational shortcomings
Flight reports on two low-fare airlines (LFAs).
Air Asia KL-Macau. Boarding was near-chaos. There was no preferential seat boarding; favoured among LFAs is sequential – the first 30 to check-in, which also rewards those who turn up for the flight in good time. So half the whole passenger load was milling around the desk at the departure gate – but there was no security or Air Asia staff until five minutes before scheduled departure time. They eventually announced a technical problem, and the flight left 45 minutes late.
On board, the seat area showed signs of corporate neglect (torn and tatty menus and shopping brochures, or missing; crumbs and forks, napkins etc in seat pocket; drink-stained seatbacks). The airline needs to rethink its operation to rectify these operational shortcomings.
The Macau flight seems too long for the crew; they finished their service in the first 45 minutes, and were then just hanging around with nothing to do for the rest of the flight, and sat in seats on the back row watching a movie on their portable DVD player.
Perhaps the airline should run a second trolley service later in the flight – travellers who missed first time might also be hungrier.
Jetstar Asia HK-Singapore. The airline has pristine aircraft – but that is because they are new. The leather seats will impress most passengers – although they are preferred by LFAs because they are easier to clean than cloth, and so after the initial capital cost, ongoing maintenance costs are lower.
Boarding took an amazing 10 minutes from the time the bus arrived at the aircraft steps to actually getting inside the plane. Yet there were only 80 passengers boarding!
There are two reasons. One is that staff are not trained, or do not bother, to speed up boarding. And the other is because Jetstar gives seat selection. LFAs usually prefer not to do this because when there is no seat selection, passengers rush and push to get their preferred seats. (True, though, that often leads to unseemly scenes – for one of my Air Asia flights, a stream of passengers ran across the tarmac to the plane.)
I boarded carrying a newspaper, and stuffed it in the seat pocket when I had finished. It was still there when I left the plane. With Southwest and Easyjet, and other successful LFAs, the passengers does much of the clearing for the airline – and cabin crews pass through the cabin about every hour and just before landing to collect rubbish in big plastic sacks.
Likewise, my coffee cup was in the seat pocket – more serious because this sort of item will start to dirty the aircraft.
The reason for the lack of interest by crew eventually became clear. Although I arrived midday, there was a team of six cleaning staff waiting as we left the aircraft. LFAs would usually have a more-thorough clean at the end of the day, but not midday. The cost of that either comes in a higher-cost of air fare, or, in Jetstar’s case, bigger financial losses.
