Low cost airlines

By | November 24, 2010

Some while ago I watched a TV documentary about the low cost airline RyanAir. Their CEO claimed excellent customer service because they are able to deliver the cheapest flights in Europe, best punctuality, and the most modern fleet of aircraft. However, their customers do not necessarily agree with the assertion that this represents excellent customer service. A quick web search will return a good deal of evidence that customers’ experiences are somewhat out of alignment with the CEO’s view. It left me wondering just whether ‘low cost’ and ‘quality’ really go together. Personally I prefer to make a judgment based on value, which goes some way to explaining why I will go out of my way to avoid flying with RyanAir. Its difficult to argue with the low cost, punctuality and modern fleet assertions, but is that what represents quality? I suspect that the whole low cost principle drags quality downwards, and sadly brings a lot of the competition with it. If our only judgment is based on cost, I don’t want to think about where we’re heading.
Anyhow, here’s an example of how some customer’s perceive a low cost airline:

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