Are circuitous routes an airline industry ploy?
It’s never made sense to me why a flight costs less the more legs to it there are. Mark and I weathered two layovers on a recent trip to Anchorage, Alaska: one in Atlanta, one in Seattle. Making two stops cost $100 per person less than making only one stop. The cost of a direct flight was so prohibitive that had we chosen that route, only one of us would have made the trip. It was that expensive.
Why flying multiple layovers doesn’t make sense—
1. The more layovers, the more chances the airline has to lose the bag.
2. We got drinks and snacks on each leg, sometimes twice, and though the expense of 15 peanuts and a Coke is minimal, the cost multiplied by a million travelers adds up.
3. Flying the close-to 450-pounds that equals Mark, me and our luggage to superfluous airports has to carry a cost.
4. We earned frequent flier miles for each leg of the trip. The more free travel earned, the less profit for the airline, I would think.
5. Personnel had to check us in—scan our boarding passes—each time we got on a plane. Baggage handlers had to unload and route our checked bag (one great big bag for the both of us). It’s my understanding that airlines charge a (what I call) annoyance fee for each bag checked and prefer folks
o make reservations online
o use the Internet to precheck-in up to 24 hours prior to flight
o collect their boarding passes and baggage claim numbers from kiosks at the airport
All this, I presume, is so that use of employees is minimized. So why program in multiple legs of a trip and the resulting overuse of personnel when a direct—or more direct—flight would minimize that employ?
Where is the efficiency in this? What’s the advantage? Honestly, I can think of no reason that every effort isn’t made on the part of the airlines to get folks to fly direct. It seems like such a money saver, but I’m surely missing something. They wouldn’t prefer we take multiple flights to reach our destinations simply to inconvenience us. Would they? If anyone can enlighten me, I’d love to hear from you. libbi@elizabethevansfryer.com. I will share thoughts in a future article.
Why flying multiple layovers doesn’t make sense—
1. The more layovers, the more chances the airline has to lose the bag.
2. We got drinks and snacks on each leg, sometimes twice, and though the expense of 15 peanuts and a Coke is minimal, the cost multiplied by a million travelers adds up.
3. Flying the close-to 450-pounds that equals Mark, me and our luggage to superfluous airports has to carry a cost.
4. We earned frequent flier miles for each leg of the trip. The more free travel earned, the less profit for the airline, I would think.
5. Personnel had to check us in—scan our boarding passes—each time we got on a plane. Baggage handlers had to unload and route our checked bag (one great big bag for the both of us). It’s my understanding that airlines charge a (what I call) annoyance fee for each bag checked and prefer folks
o make reservations online
o use the Internet to precheck-in up to 24 hours prior to flight
o collect their boarding passes and baggage claim numbers from kiosks at the airport
All this, I presume, is so that use of employees is minimized. So why program in multiple legs of a trip and the resulting overuse of personnel when a direct—or more direct—flight would minimize that employ?
Where is the efficiency in this? What’s the advantage? Honestly, I can think of no reason that every effort isn’t made on the part of the airlines to get folks to fly direct. It seems like such a money saver, but I’m surely missing something. They wouldn’t prefer we take multiple flights to reach our destinations simply to inconvenience us. Would they? If anyone can enlighten me, I’d love to hear from you. libbi@elizabethevansfryer.com. I will share thoughts in a future article.
posted by Elizabeth Evans Fryer | 5:17 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home