Air transport
Don't book don't fly
David W. Wragg
Air travel has always been one of those forms of transport for which the prudent booked in advance, the advantage being that once the booking was accepted by an airline much of the uncertainty about being able to make the journey was removed. In recent years, the tendency of some airlines deliberately to overbook passengers has done much to diminish the advantages of this system, and now new forms of booking have appeared which, while they will not mean the end of advance bookings, will mean that it can never again be taken for granted. To be accurate, the shuttle service by British Airways between London and Glasgow has merely been the introduction of an American idea to Europe for the first time, rather than being a genuine innovation. The real innovation is the `Skytrain' service advocated by Freddie Laker, owner of Laker Airways. Among the differences between these two types of service must be that, while the shuttle is working under an interim arrangement with British Airways' own employees, 'Skytrain' is being delayed by some highly questionable activity — or indeed, the lack of it — by the American Civil Aeronautics Board. A point in common has been the tendency for both to stir up a great deal of fuss, which may continue for some time yet. The shuttle offers passengers the guarantee of travel on the London and Glasgow service without pre-booking; indeed, the idea is that tickets should be sold by the cabin crew during the flight. If there are more passengers for a particular departure than seats on the aircraft, a reserve aircraft will be put into service, or even two or more reserve aircraft, and it matters not at all that a reserve, or back-up, aircraft takes off with only one passenger on board. Tickets are being sold by ground staff in the meantime while their objections to the service, which they fear will mean redundancies, are being resolved. The shuttle flights have no in-flight refreshments, and so British Airways is anxious to put the cabin staff — a legal necessity on all but the smallest aircraft — to work in some way, and selling tickets is an obvious answer.
The `Skytrain' service also lacks pre-booking, with passengers buying London to New York tickets within a few hours of the flight leaving from Stansted. Once all of the tickets are sold, it is a question of waiting a day, or perhaps two days, for the next flight. A nasty touch: passengers have their hands stamped when purchasing a ticket to ensure that only those who actually queue to buy tickets can fly. The Laker Airways single trans-Atlantic fare is a low 09.00, although meals have to be paid for as extras. Although just a little more expensive than advance booking charter flights, and does not inflict their sixty-day minimum advance booking or minimum stay qualifications.
Although the British Civil Aviation Authority granted permission for 'Skytrain' operations to start some time ago, more than a year of delays have followed from the United States. Renewed British support recently rejected claims by other airlines that the service could cripple Laker Airways, and now there is the strong possibility of strong measures against American airlines if the United States continues to delay approval for `Skytrain' in direct contravention of the spirit, if not also the letter, of the Anglo-United States air traffic agreements. • Laker has the reputation of being not just a pioneer in air transport, but of being far more adventurous than many airlines like. No one denies his reputation for strict operational standards, but as one airline executive once put it to me, "Freddie should be allowed to experiment, but I wouldn't want to get too close to him." Ironically, that airline no longer exists while Laker is as strong as ever, although the 'Skytrain' delays are more than just an irritant and could lead to the return of the airline's three McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airbuses to the manufacturer.
Yet, Laker has the businessman's traditional right to make or break himself, but the same cannot be said of British Airways, which habitually breaks itself and helps itself to the taxpayers' money. The shuttle service is intended to eliminate, or at least minimise, losses on domestic services. The real intention must be merely to force British Caledonian competition out of the way by flooding the market with capacity, providing an uneconomic frequency of service, and cashing in on travel agents' natural desire to take the easy way out and push a shuttle ticket, "like selling a book of stamps," rather than booking passengers on a flight in the usual manner. Fares and commission are the same.
While the Trident One aircraft now used on the shuttle might well be fully depreciated and able to wait in reserve until needed, crew costs have still to be met and the Trident One will soon be replaced by newer aircraft still bearing. depreciation costs. One can only assume that it. is madness to fly extra aircraft with sometimes just a handful of passengers on board at a time of escalating fuel costs, both in direct terms for the airline and in national balance of payments terms.
A far more sensible and satisfactory method would have been to offer a half-hourly frequency, rather than hourly with reserve aircraft, but only to book passengers on the hourly flights unless capacity overflowed on the half hour flights. This would have reduced the number of flights overall, improved loadings and minimised waste. It is the method used on the Jersey-Guernsey service, but of course thdt has private enterprise, unsubsidised, operating it. While the shuttle may have been a good idea once, the time for such extravagance is past, and in any case there is a minimum delay of twenty minutes between the timetable flight and the first relief flight — and all flights can be delayed if, as has happened, too many passengers board the original flight and have to be taken off.
Perhaps one good reason for the involvement of British Airways in the shuttle is that it is one airline with a record of deliberately over-booking on flights. This is because an average figure of `no-show' business travellers is arrived at, and to minimise the losses from these, a calculated risk is taken and over-booking permitted. Sometimes everyone turns up. In the United States, airlines which over-book, whether by accident or design, are fined and have to report to the authorities, who in turn publish a report showing the number of over-booking instances, while the passenger is offered the first available flight, even if it is bY another airline.
The only solution to over-booking is to insist on all passengers confirming reservations and increasing the existing `no show' and cancellation fees to a level which compensates for the loss of revenue to the airline. This would be fairer than in effect victimising innocent passengers.
Of course, air transport in Europe still suffers from too many state monopolies, and although there are grounds for limiting and regulating competition, which if excessive could be self-defeating, there are none for leaving passengers and taxpayers to the mercy of that peculiar arrogance of state enterprise, or the lack of it!
David Wragg's most recent books includq Speed in the Air and Flight Before Flying
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