Traffic figures for 2014 show that, for the first time, low cost airlines as a group in Europe carried more
passengers on European and domestic routes than members
of the Association of European Airlines by a margin of 51% to 49% (Airline
Business April 2015).
This seems to be an unstoppable trend -
the victory of simplicity over complexity, shorter vs longer travel time,
on-time vs disruptive passenger experience.
Isn't it time to change the name of
airline business models so that the confusing ‘traditional’, ‘network', legacy’,
‘low-cost’, ‘low-fare’ and so-on named models are replaced by 'complex',
'simple' and 'inbetweeners'. Then, use the colour codes to refine grades of
complexity, disruptiveness, and time-waste associated with each airport and
airline.
Apart from benefiting passengers this could shake-up even the most
complex airlines and airports to shift their course towards simplicity, even by
smallest initial steps. Then there will be no worries about the future of air
travel.
