Airblue flying to Manchester
submitted 2 years 10 months 16 hours ago by: Ordinary Citizen : 8 comments
Airblue, the fast expanding Pakistani Airline that initially started as a budget domestic carrier not long ago in June, 2004, is eyeing at expanding its operations in international destinations. After having successfully established its flights to Dubai, the airline has announed to commence its flights to Manchester, starting June 01, 2007. The service will initially cover Islamabad - Manchester route and will later be expanded into other routes.
Airblue, a prefered carrier for many corporate passengers has taken a larger share from the market leader Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). There have been 2 major reasons behind the fast market penetration and success of Airblue.
Firstly, the over all air travel market has tremendously grown over the past 2 years. Due to increasing fares of trains, and reduced fares by cheap air carriers like Aero Asia and Shaheen, the upper class passenger of local trains has shifted to airlines.
Secondly, a lot of loyal customer base of PIA had lost its faith in the national flag carrier and were looking for other alternative options. Before the birth of Airblue, there was a marked gap in the product and service standards of PIA and the rest of the carriers (Shaheen and Aero Asia) operating in the market. Airblue has very sensibly realized the gap and captured a larger share of that market, which was willing pay to a bit extra but was looking for a better service and product standards.
Despite initial issues of flight delays and opertaional disruptions, the Airblue has been successful in sustaining its domestic market, however, the future will only tell, how effective it turns out to be in its international marketing strategy.
Comments
Another success factor of Air Blue is the launch of "e-tickets". Air Blue was first to introduce the e-ticketing. On the other hand there is a big difference of "in flight services". I think Air Blue is having very good "in flight services".
Apart from service, how competitive are AirBlue's rates? what's a more economical fare? not thinking aeroasia...coz thats a wing and a prayer!
Well Kiki, when it comes to the fares part, there is a catch. Airblue has implemented a system called "Revenue Management System" which is used worldwide by many international carriers. The way this system works is that the earlier you buy a ticket, the cheaper it is.
It's actually based upon a simple rule that when the plane is all empty, there are ample seats, so the airline offers reduced fares for the passengers to fill the aircraft and as more and more seats are occupied, the airline's risk of flying empty becomes lesser and lesser, so the fares keep on rising.
So say there is an Airblue flight flying from Lahore to Karachi, about 10-15 seats will be sold at 40% of the total fare, then another 30-50 seats will be sold at 50% of the total fare, then another 50-80 seats will be sold at 60% of the total fare and in the end, the remaining seats will all be sold at full fare.
So in short, the pricing depends on how early you book the flight and how empty the plane is. In western countries, even at the last minute the prices are dropped to an extent where the flight's fixed costs are covered to avoid the empty seats, as airline seats are a perishable commodity and once the aircraft takes off, that revenue is lost.
I also heard that British Airways is also coming in with direct flights........
Well Mr. Azam, British Airways is already coming in with direct flights, however, it is restricted to Islamabad alone. There was a news that BA is starting its operations ex-Lahore, but even that decision has been cancelled due to unknown reasons and for unknown period of time.
:)