LCC Model And Cheap International Flights

When Southwest ushered in the low cost model of operation of airlines, it was a new beginning which many would not have anticipated to run into profits. There is always a challenge to change and this happened in the case of Southwest as well. However, the airline was able to gauge the need of the people to have low airfare tickets, especially on flying on small distance routes.

 It began to do its calculus on how best this need of the people can be met. The whole initiative was to look inwards and do what can be done at the operational level in order to meet this demand. This proved to be path-breaking and the airline became a raging success story, which was to be followed globally with many other airlines emerging around the globe functioning on same or similar low cost model.

Let us briefly look into what this airline model of LCC requires and then we will describe how the model was also applied to international routes. So, the low-cost-carrier model requires the following changes to be made to airline operations:

1        1.       Point to point flights

          2.       Flight duration of about 4-5 hours maximum

          

         3.       Short flight routes. In a large country, this essentially means coverage of domestic routes but                can also be international ones.

        4.       No-frills services. This means that no complimentary foods when you buy flight tickets. These           are paid in nature.

        5.       Operation of only economy cabin class. You would usually not find business or first class cabin            classes on these airlines.

       

       6.       Reluctance to offer frequent flyer programs. Some LCC airlines might not be having any                      loyalty rewards program to maintain simplicity of operations.

      7.       Price of air tickets can change within a short period of time as the seats on these flights are                   demand driven.

      8.       Focus on reducing the maintenance costs of airplanes.

      

      9.       Focus on operational efficiencies and lesser turnaround times.

These are some of high points of low cost carrier model of the airline. Now, cheap international flights offered by these airlines are generally for the short haul routes which can be reached in a span of a few hours. Passengers gain with the offer of these discounted fares on international routes as LCCs compete directly with the full-service carriers in the neighborhood of the country. Whether it is flights to Canada or any of the Central American countries from the southern cities of USA, the low cost model of operation of flights gives a fair bit competition to the full-service carriers.

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