Low cost travel from UK to the LOS

[manarak]

for passing the middle east, I'll just put your avatar on the tail...

[katoeylover]

Sounds very similar to the Air Asia model from Stansted to KL. First seats are £99 and go up from there.

[manarak]

Air Asia's site says the flight is leaving STN at 23:15 and arrives at KL at 20:00

How long is that flight?
are they flying especially slowly, or what's the deal?

[mardhi]

They have probably learnt a lot of lessons from other non performers in times of time keeping - i.e you overstate the length of the journey - then when you take off on time, you land 90 minutes earlier and everyone is happy. Equally when you leave 90 minutes late, you also land on time and everyone thinks - 'cool this pilot made up the time - great service'.

British Rail have been using this philosophy for years now.

But in regard to your idea its a total non starter for many many reasons. First up, the lift out of the UK on direct flights is currently some 1800 seats each and every day of the year into BKK. Add in viable connections and you just multiply it by 100 - its seriously that many. So your target market is already swamped with capacity - you cant win as all the carriers who tried to fly to NYC found when they went bust and they were offering a premium product at cheap prices. The cost of servicing a destination is huge in terms of marketing costs - so u need scale to make it work - a weekly scheduled service is just not viable. Your choice of 'low cost aircraft' also leaves a lot to be desired - they maybe low cost to operate but they are not low cost to lease or purchase - both are highly sought after aircraft. If u wanted to do it your actually better to utilise something like an A340 or a 747-400 as they are very very cheap on the second hand market - however they have much higher running costs as they are 4 engine aircraft. Why go with 340 or 747 - you have more seats to sell - simple really.

But as I say, there is simply not the demand for such a service - it will be impossible to fill - the UK is one of the largest tourism markets into Thailand and how many package companies bring charter airlines into Bangkok - err none. Even Phuket was a dismal failure as the cost differences are not viable over the contract rates scehduled airlines offer tour companies. Equally tour companies and airlines have huge liabilities when a plane goes tech these days. So you actually have to have 2 aircraft - your costs have just doubled. Virgin had HUGE problems in their early days - the old 747's kept going tech and it cost them a fortune booking people onto other airlines as they had insufficient aircraft to keep one spare.

And all this is before you even start thinking about U-Tapao airfield - nobody will have heard of it.

Nice idea but a total non starter - these things are modelled by airlines all the time and none have done it - speaks volume IMHO.

Cheers
Mardhi

[BlueBallz]

Yeah and 100 kgs for person and bags?? LOL that eliminates all the blobbys or semi blobbys!!!