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Cheap Egypt Holidays > Travel News > Tickets as cheap as flip-flops – but flying fatigue has set in
Tickets as cheap as flip-flops – but flying fatigue has set in | | 19th October 2008 |
Six months is an age in aviation. In March, The Independent revealed that Britain's then-flourishing airlines planned no fewer than 100 new routes for the summer. They sought to capitalise on our apparently insatiable appetite for seeing the world, preferably on the cheap. Since the end of the Second World War, our desire to fly has shown a relentless upward trajectory, abetted in the past decade by the remarkable expansion in low-cost aviation.
But as my colleague Martin Hickman reported in The Independent on Sunday last weekend, the no-frills revolution has begun to go into reverse. Nearly one million fewer passengers used the main UK airports last month compared with September 2007. This year will see the first drop in passenger numbers since the early 1990s.
Airlines and airport operators can find plenty of culprits to blame. Demand has been hit by the squeeze on consumer spending and a loss of confidence following high-profile failures such as Zoom and XL Airways. Sterling's slump against the US currency is pushing up costs for every UK airline; most of their costs are denominated in dollars. When they raise fares to compensate, some buyers inevitably vanish.
The availability of low-cost flights to destinations familiar and outlandish can stimulate long-term demand: our national fondness for buying property abroad sustains routes such as Manchester to Malaga and Stansted to Carcassonne. But the puny pound means the purchase of second homes is tailing off.
Concerns about the environment, combined with improved Eurostar services, have persuaded some travellers to switch to trains for Continental journeys; the current problems arising from the recent Channel Tunnel fire will prove little more than a blip in the long-term rail upswing that began with the opening of the high-speed line from London St Pancras last November. By December, when work on the West Coast main line to London Euston is completed, travellers from Birmingham and Manchester will have better access to Continental rail travel, with three fast trains every hour.
I suspect, though, that the main reason for the downturn in flying is that is that some of us have had enough of going on bargain, but often superficial, short breaks.
Consider why passenger numbers have increased so sharply over the past few years. Cheap flights to places you can neither spell nor find on the map have persuaded some travellers to regard flying as an impulse purchase. A big worry for Britain's aviation industry is that the impulse that will prove as flaky as our fascination with Dresden, Poznan and Sarajevo – some of the routes to be axed by BA next weekend.
When Stelios founded easyJet in 1995, he boasted of making air travel "as cheap as a pair of jeans". Since his revolutionary £29 offer between Luton and Scotland, fares have fallen even lower. This winter, flying will be as cheap as a pair of flip-flops on some routes, with Ryanair selling seats from 3 November to 17 December for £10 – which only covers Air Passenger Duty.
When fares approach zero, economic theory suggests demand should soar – yet many of these almost-free seats will remain empty. Visiting a unprepossessing city in Eastern Europe, though, has limited appeal, even when you can fly there for £10. That is why some Ryanair pilots have been told to take a week's unpaid leave.
Travellers are now well aware of the extra costs of any journey by air. Some are financial – from airport parking to exorbitantly priced inflight snacks. Others are intangible but important: time squandered and stress accumulated in the tiresome business of boarding a plane.
Coincidentally, this month we have started a new approach to our long-running 48 Hours city-break series: instead of recommending quick, cheap hits, we strongly suggest readers stay longer in a region, perhaps taking in three great cities over a seven-day break. Last week, Venice; today, Rome; next week, Naples – easily connected with a pair of appealing train journeys.
Plenty of folk will celebrate the apparent weakening of our addiction to what some call "binge flying"; people involved in UK tourism, and lovers of the planet. for example. But anyone working for an airport or airline is in for a long, cold winter. |
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