People love to label things, stick them in neat categories so as to define them fast. That’s getting harder these days in the airline industry as traditional Low Cost Carriers (LCCs, or discount airlines) are being displaced by an emerging breed of “hybrid” carriers – airlines that combine the best attributes of LCCs and full-service carriers.
Such is the gist of a new survey by Sabre Airline Solutions. The world-wide study covered 540 carriers, and it reveals that out of the 123 self-proclaimed LCCs, 7 percent of them had enough complexity to their business model that they had actually evolved into a full-service airline. A far more significant 52 percent of those 123 discount airlines have become what amounts to a new species of airline – one that combines the traits of a LCC with that of a full-service carrier.
Interestingly, just 41 percent of the self-proclaimed LCCs really retain true discount airline characteristics such as point-to-point routes, single aircraft types, single cabin configuration (all-coach), and simple airfares bereft of interline or codeshare pacts with other airlines. Another key Low-Cost Carrier characteristic is direct ticket distribution, almost always through the Internet.
One more indication that hybrids are ascendant: they carried 64 percent of all passengers in the broader LCC segment during 2007.
Who are the emerging hybrids in this country? Sabre Airline Solutions says they include discount airlines Southwest, JetBlue, and AirTran Airways.
Coincidentally or not, it is Cheapflights’ observation that those three carriers are among the few airlines in the nation that are actually expanding in these days of soaring fuel prices.
© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler
