It is interesting that the only airline not charging for luggage these days and airlines focused on customer service are increasing load factors and traffic. What is Southwest’s special elixir to have a load factor jump by five times any of its competitors?
I’d like to think that the traveling public is realizing that Southwest’s policy of not charging for baggage actually makes a difference. It is a big difference for domestic flights where all of the legacy carriers are charging to to $100 to take two bags on a round-trip flight.
The other factors from my point of view are a simple understandable airline ticketing policy and pricing. Both JetBlue and AirTran that sell tickets based on combining one-way airfares have seen whopping jumps in passengers. Passenger service and comfort also come into play.
JetBlue and AirTran both reported increases in revenue passenger miles (RPM). Of the legacy carriers, only Continental Airlines, know for focusing on customer service, saw an increase in RPM of 3.5 percent.
Here are the traffic figures comparing revenue passenger miles (RPM) and load factors between December 2008 with December 2009:
AirTran RPM= +5.3% Load factor= -2.1%
American Airlines (Domestic) RPM= -1.6% Load factor= +0.6%
Continental Airlines (Domestic) RPM= +3.5% Load factor= +1.1
Delta Air Lines (Domestic) RPM- -6.3% Load factor= -2%
jetBlue RPM= +7.5% Load factor= +0.6%
Southwest Airlines RPM= +3% Load factor= +6.5%
United Airlines (N.Am) RPM=-3.9% Load factor = -0.2%
US Airways (Domestic) RPM= -3.6% Load factor= -1%
When our legacy carriers begin to pare back their added fees, passengers will begin to return. Or hopefully, the Clear Airfare bill introduced into the Senate by Sen. Menendez might force airlines to provide a fare display that allows passengers to compare apples to apples rather than scramble to figure out the real fare when all the fees are included.
With fees rising and legacy carriers disguising their actual fares by hiding the additional fees until late in the booking process, consumers are being flimflammed. d
Photo: Eric Harmatz Flickr Creative Commons
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
