At World Routes, Our Clients Have The Advantage With Chinese Airlines
This week, our airport clients are heading to Guangzhou. And in meeting with Chinese airlines, they’re way ahead of the competition, with marketing materials, China-US forecasts, and data presentations created in Chinese by the professionals at Boyd Group International.
But the China opportunity is one for the future, and after World Routes give us a call. We can assist airports of all roles and sizes develop effective outreach to capture more business and Chinese investment for their regions of the country.
BGI is the foremost expert in China-US air service forecasts and strategic trends. Click here to go to BoydGroupChina.com and see how we can give you the advantage in attracting this new key revenue sector.
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The Wildcatter Wild Ride
As we pointed out at the 2018 International Aviation Forecast Summit, the ULCC genre of airline is a whole new use of airplanes as vehicles to deliver a discretionary spending option, rather than chasing air service shortfalls.
Getting that confused can lead to PR embarrassment when the carrier shifts focus and pulls down some or all service. It’s not a good idea – nor sound planning – to portray ULCC entry as the same thing as American or Delta of United adding flights.
The two transportation modes are fundamentally different. ULCC entry is a positive event… but it needs to be handled carefully and described accurately. Otherwise there can be some serious egg on the Mayor’s face for reading off crib sheets and taking great credit for this wonderful air service event, only to have it evaporate shortly later.
Also as we noted, these carriers are like their wildcatter counterparts in the oil industry – they drill for revenue, and if it’s not there sufficiently, they are gone. Quickly.
A lot of the euphoria of a couple months ago at some Frontier-chosen cities is fixin’ to deflate due to this key dynamic of the wildcatter model… as a couple of examples, between now and February schedules indicate the following:
Austin – seventeen markets served by Frontier will be gone
Raleigh-Durham – nine nonstop destinations off the A&D board
San Antonio – fourteen markets pulled.
No Harm. No Foul. The public needs to be disabused of the notion that such pull-downs are any indication of local air service weakness. The majority of these yanked markets were low-frequency “day of week” flights. The loss is not a major hit to any of these airports. In most cases, they were simply experimental.
And even if operated only for a very short time before being pulled, the airports involved benefitted from traffic and PFCs they wouldn’t have had anyway. They introduced airports to consumers that wouldn’t have been there in the absence of Frontier.
Don’t Pop The Bubbly Too Loudly. Again, this wildcatter model is entirely different from traditional airline planning. That needs to be recognized in how local PR is handled when the grand announcements are made of new service. It could be gone in a couple of months, so the PR needs to be handled carefully.
The temptation to posture the entry as the result of the community’s “years of effort to lure the airline to town” should be avoided. That gets icky when the service is dropped after two months.
More excitement to come…