ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1999 a survey of 19,000 British leisure passengers produced some astonishing results. A much higher proportion of passengers would definitely recommend low-cost ‘no-frills’ carriers such as Go or easyJet to their friends than would recommend British Airways, British Midland or many other European scheduled airlines. The discrepancy in rankings was particularly marked on short-haul routes. For UK domestic flights, 63 per cent of easyJet’s passengers would definitely recommend this airline while among British Airways passengers the figure dropped to only 41 per cent. For flights to France, easyJet again received a firm recommendation from 63 per cent of its passengers while the figure for Air France was below 25 per cent. While in relation to individual factors such as leg room, comfort, catering, cleanliness or cabin crew all the ‘no-frills’ airlines were generally considered among the worst, in terms of value for money they were rated among the best. Clearly many passengers don’t mind roughing it on short flights if the price is low enough. Moreover, they believe their friends would welcome this too. Interestingly, the ‘no-frills’ scheduled carriers were also much more highly recommended than European charter airlines which, like them, offer low fares but with frills (Holiday Which, 1999).
