Will the successful no-frills, or budget airline, model work for long-haul, trans-continental flights? That is the question – especially in such dire economic times, when many airlines are cutting services and reducing capacity.
One airline that is bucking the trend is AirAsia X, the low-cost, long-haul affiliate of AirAsia (www.airasia.com), which has announced plans to fly five-times weekly non-stop (a 12-hour flight) between London Stansted and Kuala Lumpur, starting March 11, 2009. One-way fares start at £99 (RM49) for a 31-inch pitch seat, and from £549 (RM1,999) including airport taxes.
(Currently AirAsia X flies 4 times weekly to Gold Coast, Australia, and 5 times weekly to Hangzhou, China. AirAsia X aims to cover destinations which are more than four hours away from Kuala Lumpur, complementing the existing AirAsia network and offering daily point-to-point frequencies to popular destinations in Australia, North Asia, India, the Middle East and Europe.)
[No-frills carriers are modeled on Southwest Airlines in the United States. They are characterized by point-to-point services, high utilization of aircraft, low distribution costs, achieved with on-line booking, and variable one-way fares that reflect demand for flights at different dates and times of the day. Such has been the success of carriers such as EasyJet, Ryanair, Air Berlin, and German Wings, that ‘full-service’ airlines, like Air France, SAS, Swiss and British Airways, have adopted similar low-cost, one-way pricing in order to compete on short-haul routes in Europe. It is often hard to tell the difference these days between no-frills and the full-service, or ‘legacy,’ carriers in Europe, as they both raise the stakes in competing with one another.
Analysts have long debated whether the ‘no-frills’ formula can work with long-haul services, if only because quick aircraft turnarounds can be frustrated by issues of safety and time-zone constraints, and crew schedules. And of course, the discomfort span: will passengers tolerate being jammed for eight hours into a knee-crunching seat that they might just about put up with for a short flight? And one has to offer some creature comforts on a long flight.
Craig Jenks, president of Airline/Aircraft Projects Inc. in New York, says, ‘You are asking, can one become the other and vice versa? The answer is that the high-cost full-service carriers are doing their best to reduce costs. And the low-cost carriers over here are going progressively longer haul. JetBlue and Southwest both fly from Coast to Coast, one hour less than the North Atlantic. You might say, if they can do that, why can’t they just cross the Atlantic? It so happens that that one hour time difference is the difference between operating a narrow body plane like the Boeing 757 and a wide body like the 767. Simplicity of equipment is absolutely paramount. And when you go long haul, you have to have better food, service and entertainment. And probably a premium cabin of some kind.’
‘Pay-per-frill,’ such as charging for priority boarding, and disembarking, in-flight use of mobile phones, extra legroom and baggage allowance, and gourmet meals, might be the answer for both airlines and passengers. Look out for hybrid premium seats or cabins, not as fancy (or pricey) as the all-singing-all-dancing ergonomic lie-flat sleeper seats in first and business-class cabins of the big name carriers, but at least as comfortable as those old first class seats in the narrow body Boeing 707s and DC 8s back in the late 1960s, before business class was invented. Following perhaps in the tradition of the much lamented Canadian carrier, Ward Air (long since subsumed by Air Canada) that had a ‘Big Seat’ option on long-haul routes between Canada and Europe. Everyone got the same service, but you could opt to pay extra for a larger, more comfortable, seat. ]
I spoke first with Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of Air Asia X:, and then Tony Fernandes, AirAsia group CEO.
R.C: There are various business models for ‘no-frills,’ ‘low-cost’ and ‘budget’ that are sometimes hard to define; then you get so-called ‘hybrid’ carries – a sort of segmentation within the low-cost category. What sort of model is Air Asia on this particular route?
A.O-R: I joined AirAsia a year and a half ago to start AirAsia X – a separate company that does long-haul services – operationally, we’re one and the same and we have one consumer brand which is Air Asia, but Tony has kept us as a separate entity because he did not want to expose AirAsia’s public shareholders to the different risk profile of long haul, which at that time was unproven compared to short haul – he wanted to use public shareholder funds to underpin the financing of AirAsia short haul operations.
As we started AirAsia X as a separate company, we were able to raise our own funding, buy our own planes, but we take advantage of the strength Air Asia has in terms of the brand and the network; we share the same pilots and crew, and ground handling… now, here’s Tony.
R.C: Successful no-frills carriers, such as Ryanair and EasyJet, have been based on the Southwest Airlines model, which is essentially point-to-point; single equipment; low overhead; low distribution costs – they pioneered on-line booking, and one-way pricing, which legacy carriers have been following; high aircraft turnaround and high utilization of capital; no interlining… Now this works for short haul, but can it work for long haul? Can you give me a rationale for the long haul? and how you are going to make it work?
T.F: Right now I think we are the only airline that is using our present model how does it work? Since we started everyone has said the long haul model doesn’t work for the all the reasons you have said. Now where we buck the trend is we take AirAsia and we put it on steroids and it becomes AirAsia X and it becomes high capacity, high utilization; we still do quick turnarounds, we’re not slaves to a timetable; so if you look at our London flight, we arrive at different times during the day so we maximize utilization. But the key is really the point-to-point; we’re not really point-to-point, though we operate as point-to-point. What does that mean? It means that when I fly from London to Kula Lumpur, the point-to-point traffic in KL may not be that large, but you now have a short haul network that’s second to none. You can go from KL to scores of destinations, like Bali, Phuket, Bangkok, Singapore and so on… So we marry the long haul with the short haul in what we think is a winning formula.
R.C: So you can interline?
T.F: We don’t actually practice the interlining policy; we have all the advantages without the costs…
R.C. Interlining is costly?
T.F: Correct. We’re like EasyJet; if you want to fly on you, have to have a separate ticket. We make it easy. For example, in our new terminal were building in KL, we have for the first time put in a transfer desk; and people coming off Azan’s planes can go to this desk and recheck in for their next flight. We will make it a form of interlining, but we’ll make it self-liquidating; i.e. if you say I don’t want to deal with my bags, can you put them on the next flight? then we will charge you for that service. So it’s still a menu of services, that are priced, so that you can virtually get a full service product. But you pay for it.
R.C: This a la carte pricing is now happening with the full service airlines; it started with baggage. I see it working for the consumer because if you just want a basic fare you get it; you think you’re getting free food or interline, but you’re not; it’s in the cost structure. I prefer to pay for my own champagne if I want it.
T.F: Correct. It’s inequitable; because the guy in front of you may drink three bottles; the guy behind you may be a teetotaler…
R.C: But tell me how it works.
T.F: You buy a base fare, a seat; change your ticket? No, you want to change anything, there are change fees and so on. We ask for discipline. Why? Because a lot of people will book a seat and then they don’t turn up. It’s a perishable product; when you don’t turn up we have very little time to sell it again, so we say, to maintain our low fares, our efficiency, we ask a little bit of discipline from you. One base fare, dynamically priced, based on demand. Our yield management is exactly like Ryanair or EasyJet. The best passenger in the crude sense, according to [Michael] O’Leary, is someone going to a funeral. Why? Because he has to get there. So you open a newspaper (you had no intention of going to KL), you see £99, you say, I’m going to go; that’s the discretionary market that we fill up using our low fares; then the middle market people, who had planned to take a trip; then the last minute travelers. We charge a bit more for them because we know they’re time sensitive.
So that’s how we work; maybe I’m a little bit biased. It’s been in my mind since I was a 13-year-old plane spotter at Heathrow. I’ve looked at how could we get people cheaper across from Europe to Asia; and I think that for £99 pounds, people will say, I was going to Spain, but now I’ll go to Bali. The same for people in Southeast Asia, who only dreamed of seeing Big Ben. There are three things people in Asia people are dying to see: the Queen, Big Ben, and a football match. It’s now a reality.
You buy your basic fare and get a 31-inch pitch; it’s a shell-back seat that slides down – we think it’s irritating when someone puts their seat back on you. We have a wonderful in flight system that costs you about £5; you pay for that and order from a choice of food on a touch screen; the order goes straight to the galley and crew will bring it out with drinks; it’s all there, comfort kits, extra blankets, order what you want, just swipe your card. I reckon you’d spend another £20 more on a 12-hour flight; one meal and a snack in between. You’re talking about £10 for food; maybe £5 for luggage.
You can also pay extra for a better seat; this could be an aisle seat, one by the emergency exit or by the bulkhead – allows you to stretch a bit more. Or it could be a completely better seat, the XL seat we call it, leather, fully reclining with more leg-room. It’s not a class. You see, that’s where complexity comes in; if I put in a class, then I have to have a separate check-in; people’s expectations are different, and your costs start creeping up. We have 30 XL seats on the Airbus A340 we’re leasing initially from Air Canada. Our load factor on those seats is about 65 percent.
Eventually, our configuration will be about 50 flat beds. Again, as a traveler I don’t care too much about the food; it is space and getting a good night’s sleep with really flat beds. One thing airlines screw up on is the duvet; they cut costs and put polyester and tiny pillows. We give you a really decent pillow and a decent blanket; that’s all inclusive in the seat cost – about £1,000 return.
So I keep the tradition; I’m not changing my model – I have high utilization; point-to-point, I don’t interline, don’t have a separate class; but we manage to tweak it without spoiling the operational efficiency, by giving customers a choice, so they can supplement it.
R.C. Would you call it a hybrid?
T.F: I’d like to say it isn’t actually, because I do think we’re in the traditions of Southwest Airlines; but I’d like to say we’ve been innovative, in being very religious to the model but finding ways to preserve the model. I sit down with Herb Kelleher of Southwest and he thinks what I’m saying is complete sacrilege. O’Leary would crucify me on the stake of low cost for abandoning the model. But I think one of the dangers of those guys is they don’t look at different ways of doing it. Jet Blue took out rows of seats, and put in live TV and all that, and putting in lounges. Or Air Tran having a business class; I don’t agree with that. But I think if you’re just stuck in your way for 40 years, then you do miss opportunities; one has to be evolving. But the core principles of the model are still there, although you can add value to that model.
R.C: How can you get fast turnaround on long haul?
T.F: We’re doing it. We’ve got 18 hours utilization; we’re turning around a 340 in about an hour right now; our 330 with 383 passengers we’re doing it in 55 minutes. An hour versus 25 minutes isn’t going to get you an extra flight to London. But let me tell you how we get it, how we differ from a traditional long-haul airline. One is if you look at our timetable. Everyone is flying at the same time every day; if I took a Malaysian Airlines flight, it would leave KL at 12 o’clock at night, arrive in London at six in the morning. Because of its integrity to its schedule, it would leave London about 11 o’clock in the morning and arrive back at KL at five; and then it wouldn’t leave again till 12. So in two days you lose 12 hours, because it doesn’t want its business class passengers getting up at six in the morning.
We’ll start off with five flights a week. But I’m going to look at London to KL as being a shuttle route. It sounds bizarre, but I really think I can get five, even seven flights a day. But I don’t want to scare the hell out of anyone. I’d say to them five times, but I really think we could do seven times a day; every three hours. Now why do I think that? Because I’m not just serving the UK market in Stansted; all my low cost brethren are there: Ryanair, EasyJet, Air Berlin, and whoever else survives this mess. So someone from Paris or Prague can fly over to Stansted, and take us to KL; and equally, someone from Malaysia can get over to Stansted with us, and travel on to Paris or wherever.
R.C: Will you do deals with them, with other low-cost carriers?
T.F: Well, I think eventually. Mind you, doing a deal with Michael O’Leary sounds a scary thought. Stelios though is a good friend; I started this airline based on Stelios, and yeah, Stelios is a much nicer person to deal with than O’Leary. I’ve got 600 million people in Asia I can promote to, so basically, I don’t think we need a formal tie up; because the Internet brings it all together anyway.
R.C: But why on earth are you launching at this particular time? Oasis, Zoom and others all going out of business?
T.F: What they did wrong was, number one, they didn’t have size; number two, they only had two or three planes; they didn’t have a brand like AirAsia. But the most important thing is they veered away from the low-cost model. Oasis had a business class with the same seating configuration as Singapore Airlines, and lounges. But the most important factor was, they didn’t have Air Asia’s short-haul network. When you arrive on KL with us, you’ve got the connectivity with us throughout Asia.
We have 100 destinations out of KL, and hubs in Bangkok and Jakarta, like Stelios in Europe. I think that’s the difference between us, plus we were religious to the model; we pack the seats in and made it as comfortable as possible.
R.C. What sort of load factors do you have to have for this?
T.F: Well, right now, fuel’s come down so much, so our load factors come down dramatically. Right now, at today’s oil price, for break-even we’re looking at 52 percent; with oil at $100 dollars, we’d be looking at about 65 percent; $150 dollars, we’re looking at 85 percent – at these fares.
R.C: Still, doing this in the credit crunch; why are you so optimistic?
T.F: I thrive on calamity; I thrive on the fact that everyone’s got their heads in a spin and don’t know what to do. And in a world of chaos, it’s the best time to capitalize and to build market share when everyone’s too busy looking after their own back sides; they’re not worried about what you do, all they’re saying is, this guy’s a lunatic, he will fail. So they leave us alone.
What I say, if anyone listens, is the best time to build a brand is during a recession, because everyone else has cut advertising. The worst time to cut your marketing budget is during a recession, because when you come out of the recession, your brand is very strong; those who survive will be very strong. So it’s the easiest thing to cut, that’s correct, but it’s the worst thing, and you sometimes can’t see the effects of the brand building, you know, to the bottom line. I have daily battles with my controller who says, why don’t you take a quarter page ad instead of a full page? But we thrive on this; we’re contrarian, we believe people want to travel, that we have good news and this will stimulate travel.
R.C: What about other routes?
T.F: The big question is, whether I put all my eggs into Stansted, and use that as the base into Europe; or whether we split and say, okay, let’s have one in Stansted, one in central Europe, and one in eastern Europe. I would probably say the latter. So we’d look at somewhere in southern Europe or central Europe. And I’m a big believer in eastern Europe; I believe the Poles, and the Czechs, and the Slovaks would love to come to our part of the world; and we would love to go to their part of the world.
Call me any time. I would love to pick your brains.
London, Dec. 2008
‘You’ve checked in, and printed your boarding card with your seat assignment online; fantastic. You then need to check your bag with an agent; go through passport control; join the queue at security; then present the boarding card and an ID when you board the plane. Each of these processes is being done in self-service mode somewhere in the world. We are trying to corral these to deliver a program to speed the progress of passengers through the airport.’
This is how Paul Behan, program manager for fast travel, at the International Air Transport Association in Geneva, talks about his mission.
Baggage, for example: you first need to register that you intend to check one, two or more bags, either on the Web or a self-service kiosk at the airport. Then you ‘self-tag’ your bags.
‘That’s what is happening in Scandinavia, Germany and Canada; getting the bag to the point ready to go,’ Behan says. ‘You still need an agent for airline liability and security sides, but you can cut the process to about 20 seconds as opposed to the couple of minutes it takes now. However, some pilots are going on in Europe, such as Schiphol, for a totally unmanned baggage drop facility.’
If your bags don’t make it to the other end, instead of standing in line for an agent, you will fill in the data at a kiosk, or an Internet work station, in the baggage hall, print a receipt, and leave without seeing anyone.
The next stage to printing out the boarding card at home will be to check in with your cell phone, or use it as a postbox for a Web check-in. Check in the night before and send it to your mobile. According to Behan, ten airlines enable mobile phone check-in with IATA bar-coded boarding passes.
Cell phones can lessen the misery of hanging around the airport waiting for a delayed flight.
Imagine a snow storm over Chicago with a hundreds of delayed or canceled flights; standing in line at the desk for an agent to help you.
‘We’re looking at mobile technology to send a message to the passenger saying, don’t turn up at the airport at two o’clock but at four; and by the way, here’s your new boarding pass. This is a reality today,’ Behan says. ‘You’ll also be able to use your mobile device as a boarding pass; saves you having to print a bit of paper.’
‘The next step is boarding the plane. In Japan, Scandinavia and Germany, they’re implementing self-boarding gates,’ Behan adds. ‘Think of your metro station. You’ll present your boarding pass either as a piece of paper or mobile with a bar code. There are some challenges with passport checks at the gate; but we are working on that.’
Baggage is the number one reason why travelers do not use self-service options, according to a survey by SITA, a Geneva-based airline communications provider, conducted at six of the world’s busiest airports.
SITA Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service Survey examined the attitudes and habits of a representative sample of the 232 million passengers who use seven international airports: Hartsfield-Jackson, Atlanta; Mumbai International; Charles-de-Gaulle, Paris; Moscow Domodedovo; Sao Paulo Guarulhos and Johannesburg. Interviews with 2,143 travelers representing more than 60 nationalities flying on more than 100 airlines were made at the departure gates during April and May 2008.
The survey confirms that self-service is part of full-service expectations; and airlines are responding with technology giving travelers greater convenience, with power to control their airport experience. Only price (70.5 percent) and flight schedule (63.1 percent) rank above ‘ability to make your own arrangements on the Web’ (42.5 percent).
Overall, 57.6 percent of respondents booked their flight on line, while 36 percent checked in on the Web or at a self-service kiosk. ‘Ease of use’ (72 percent) and ‘time saved’ (60 percent) were the most popular reasons for online booking - plus the fact that the Web makes comparison of the various options easier (56 percent).
‘Baggage is the reason stated by almost half (48.4 percent) of people as the reason for not using self-service check ins when it is available,’ says Dominique El Bez, SITA director, portfolio marketing, ‘seriously detracting from the passenger experience, and limiting the savings and efficiencies made possible by self-service technology. Addressing the baggage dilemma is a key milestone towards achieving our target of 80 percent self-service check-in.’
According to the survey, 47.8 percent of travelers would be willing to use both remote check-in and bag-drop services in the future, and 42.2 percent of them would be willing to pay for them.
A majority of respondents (66.7 percent) would welcome more online functions such as the ability to modify reservations. The ability to use kiosks for flight transfers would be welcomed by 53.8 percent, and for reporting lost baggage claims by 41.8 percent.
The number of travelers willing to use airline Web sites to frequently book other travel components, such as hotels and car rental, is expected to ‘almost double in the coming years’ from the present 11.2 percent.
‘Automated border control and security processing’ would be acceptable to 48.7 percent, while a ‘weighted average’ of 40 percent of travelers would accept the idea of airlines or airports using ‘location sensing technology to guide them through the terminal.’
This is ‘Big Brother’ territory. Radio Frequency Identification Tags linked with a network of high resolution CCTV panoramic cameras around an airport can track the location of any passenger with an accuracy of one square meter, enabling authorities to keep an eye on suspicious individuals, find lost children, ensure that passengers arrive at the gate in time to board their planes, and help evacuate airports in an emergency.
RFID chips work by emitting a short radio message when interrogated by an electronic tag reader. Passengers might be given a wrist band or a boarding pass embedded with a unique ID, cross-referenced to information on the reservations system, such as name and flight number.
The highest acceptance of the idea among respondents was in Sao Paulo (69 percent); the lowest in Paris Charles-de-Gaulle (four percent).
If you are not currently enrolled in one of the many frequent traveler programs, the question is why not?
For better or worse, frequent traveler programs are here to stay. The fact that most travelers are in love with the quest for free travel bonuses from these programs is a given. After all, a free lunch is always hard to resist, and, in this case, much easier to get than you might think. The typical program requires the traveler to log 20,000 to 25,000 miles before collecting his or her first free trip, and with all the various program “partners”, you can often earn a free flight after only flying three times. But understanding and using the benefits of travel programs is not as simple as it once was. In fact, many travelers complain that they have to earn their awards twice: once by accumulating the necessary miles and points, and again by tracking the shifting rules and requirements of the various program.
When all is said and done, it is still those leisure travel benefits that keep the busiest of travelers coming back. The promises made to a spouse for all those nights away form home or missing your daughter’s thirteenth birthday will certainly encourage that special trip away from the rat race. Although business travelers have been known to “fly that extra mile” to earn bonus points, leisure travelers too are quickly realizing the benefits.
Do more miles, points and mail guarantee you free trips? Many awards go unredeemed because the most frequent travelers do not have the time to use them. Still others have not learned to concentrate their loyalty, thus ending with miles and points everywhere except in the program they want free travel from. For those of your still trying to figure out which way is better, let us offer you these time tested tips:
1. Focus on a particular program. It works best if you go out of your way to fly on a particular airlines, stay at a certain hotel or rent from a partner car rental company. Since most travel agencies tend to develop “profiles” to their customers, take the time to make sure your “preferred” list is in your file along with the traditional window- or aisle-seat request.
2. Determine what you want from a program. Before miring yourself in bonus miles, compare programs and decide what it is you want. First class upgrade? Some are easier to get than others. Free international travel? Not every program will fly you to Australia. Merchandise? Stereo equipment vs. golf clubs. Low mileage requirements? Not all awards are created equal — some airlines require 40,000 miles for a free domestic airlines ticket, while others have the same awards available for only 20,000 miles. Transferability? Some programs only allow you to use the award while others allow you to transfer them to a friend or business associate. There are many choices and benefits that are a part of the programs and it is always best to decide on them beforehand.
3. Choose proper program partners. Most people do not realize that between 30% to 50% of their total miles and points can come from proper program partners. Every time you travel and use a “partner’ airline, hotel or car rental company, you increase your chances of earning an award faster. For example, on a flight from Chicago to Denver, you will earn between 1,500 and 2,000 miles (roundtrip) depending on a your airlines program. An affiliated hotel partner can add 500 to 1,000 bonus miles to that total, and a partner car rental can add another 500 to 1,000 bonus miles. Using this method you can simultaneously earn miles and points toward numerous separate awards during a single trip.
4. Take advantage of affinity credit cards. Let’s face it, it is almost impossible to travel these days without some kind of credit card. Smart travelers are those who have traded their existing Visa and Mastercard credit cards for those of the airline or hotel program they belong to. Affinity credit cards offer the same credit privilege as your other credit cards, but, in addition to enhanced travel benefits such as bonus miles and points just for signing up and additional insurance and collision damage waivers for car rentals, they offer the ability to earn one bonus miles or point for every dollar charged to the credit card. This is your award inflation fighter. Should your program increase the number of miles or points for the award of your choice, using your affinity credit card can help make the difference.
5. Plan award use. Occasionally it is possible for forget that millions of other program members may want to go to Europe with their free awards at the same time as you. Be realistic and plan ahead. Popular international destinations are often booked up to three to 15 months in advance. Be flexible. Plan your travel so that you depart midweek and remember that business class is easier to get than first class. And whatever you do, protect your awards; they are not replaceable if lost or stolen. Allow one month to get the proper awards sent from the service center, and if you are not able to get the seats or hotel space for the destination of your choice, keep trying. Most awards are capacity controlled and, although there may not be a seat available today, someone may change their plans tomorrow and you could end up getting their reservations with a well-timed call.
BOTTOM LINE
These programs are a plus whether you travel regularly or infrequently. A little more graciousness and cooperation seems to be extended to the members of travel programs by personnel at airlines ticket counters, clubs, hotel registration and car rental counters. The programs are especially handy when your travel plans have changed and you need an exception to the rules. The policies of the programs are not easy to keep track of and many times you will feel that you could probably devote a day of every business week trying to keep up. But when the plane is full and you are in seat 1-A, or sprawled out on the sofa in a suite at the Hyatt, you will quickly forget what it took to get you there. Instead, you will be planning your next free trip.
Why pay an arm and a leg for the latest business class ’sleeper’ seat when you can buy three or four adjoining seats in the back cabin for about one quarter of the price, put the arm-rests down, and stretch out and sleep? With a bit of lateral thinking you can create your own ‘lateral class.’
This is the question several readers have asked, intrigued by the advice of Janys Harvey (’The sleeper seat scramble, Dec. 1) who, as I reported, has for years bought three adjoining seats in economy and ’sleeps like a baby, completely flat’ for far less than the cost of business class.
For example, booking four round-trip economy seats from London to New York on British Airways will cost about $2,000 compared with nearly $4,000 for a business-class seat.
Readers may recall that we have had a vigorous debate on the pros and cons of this practice in the past.
Back in the old days, before business class emerged in the late 1970s, there were only two cabins, first class and economy. First class was mainly a golden ghetto for the chief honchos, the seriously rich (and those of us who had stretched company rules by changing our flights, upgrading to first with our ‘Air Travel Cards,’ and swearing blind on our expense reports that economy was overbooked). Everyone else flew economy, which was not nearly as dire as cattle-class today. Okay, you had to pay for the drinks and head-sets, but the food was better than it is today and you had a bit more space to stretch your legs.
And there were only two types of plane - empty or full. If one could target an ‘empty’ flight, and get four seats behind the bulkhead to stretch out and sleep, one was in paradise. Far more comfortable than first class, which, in those days, had arm-chair seats that you could only recline to about 15 degrees.
At Chicago O’Hare Airport, flights to Europe all departed around the same time in the evening. Standard procedure was to walk along the row of airline desks, armed with a flexible ticket, and go with the carrier that would ‘guarantee’ you your personal row in the middle section of the cabin. But you had to stake out your real estate to thwart itinerant fellow passengers dumping in one of ‘your’ seats after take-off!
British Airways, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic are among the major airlines that accept multiple bookings from people who wish to buy more than one seat. (’As many seats as you like,’ a Continental spokesman says.) Airlines are used to the idea (and often insist) that extra-wide passengers, or those carrying large musical instruments or paintings, need to book an extra seat.
There are vital precautions. Booking several seats does not always ensure their integrity. Airlines, drawing upon reserves of small print, may say, ‘We can never guarantee seat assignments’ and that ‘personnel and computers often reassign seats.’ Always check aircraft seating plans before you book, and make sure that your seats are pre-assigned and together. I heard of one traveler who found that the two seats he had booked for himself were on either side of the aisle! Make sure that armrests are not fixed in the down position on the type of plane you will be flying; best to book direct with the airline, and get an advance seat assignment. Bear in mind that certain seats (such as those in emergency exit rows) are only allocated at check-in. And always make sure that the airline authorizes and understands what you are doing. You do not want to be faced at check-in with: ‘Sorry, Mr. Zilch, we have had to split your party!’ And, of course, the multiple seat strategy only makes sense if you fly nonstop; there’s no point in paying for four seats, scattered around the cabin, if you connect to a smaller plane en route.
But your best laid plans can be thwarted by a last moment change of equipment with a different cabin configuration. What I thought was an exit row when I booked online for a flight back from Geneva turned out to be two rows in front. And you might have a hard time defending your territory in the case of overbooking, when airlines scramble to find a seat for everyone; the sudden appearance of ‘unaccompanied minors;’ or a late-arriving, ‘must fly,’ platinum card member of the frequent flier club.
Logically, you should be able to earn miles for all the seats you have bought, but don’t count on logic in the arcane world of frequent flier rules. Airlines might argue that miles can only be allocated for one seat as only one person is traveling. And if it’s miles you are counting, you will earn disproportionately more if you buy one seat in a premium cabin, than four seats at the back of the plane, which is what marketing is all about.
But there is more to business class than ’sleeper seats’ and a good night’s sleep, such as better quality in-flight service, food and amenities, priority check-in, run of the executive lounge and sometimes free limo transfers at either end.
I would advise Janys Harvey, and lateral class travelers, to compromise by upgrading to premium economy, with a separate cabin, that is offered by a dozen long-haul carriers. A round-trip fare from London to New York on British Airways costs around $2,300, only $300 more for one seat than four seats in economy. The seat does not allow you to sleep horizontally, but it is better than the old first-class seats of the pre-business-class era.
Which is more or less where we came in.