Features

In focus

20 May 2011 by Alex McWhirter

Alex McWhirter looks at how Easyjet is wooing business travellers.

At a time of crowded airports, Easyjet is wooing Anglo-Scottish business passengers with a more palatable travel experience. It is trialling “fast-track” security clearance out of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports for those passengers purchasing “Speedy Boarding” or holding an Easyjet Plus card.

Fast-track will also become a standard offering, along with one item of checked luggage, for all passengers booking through a travel management company (TMC). “Business travellers have been telling us that if you can help them to get through airports faster then it will be a good thing,” Hugh Aitken, the carrier’s commercial manager for Scotland, tells Business Traveller.

Easyjet is anxious for more business people because, quite simply, they pay more for their tickets. The flexible fares it sells through TMCs start at £100 one-way, which is more than the sort of price the leisure passenger pays. “Company financial directors want to save money and they like what they see,” Aitken claims.

Flexible fares will soon be made available to all passengers booking through easyjet.com and will come with benefits that will be extra-cost options for passengers booking cheaper tickets, such as fast-track security and one piece of checked luggage.

But a word of caution must be sounded. At present Easyjet’s flexible fares are flexible only in that they allow penalty-free last-minute changes at the airport should your meeting finish early or be cancelled. It means you could switch to an earlier flight or return from a different airport – for example, return to Edinburgh from Stansted rather than Luton – provided seats are available.

But when Go (a British Airways-owned budget airline taken over by Easyjet in 2002) offered flexible fares for its flights to and from Stansted, it was possible to make changes by phone. Admittedly, it was different in those days because airlines maintained large call centres.

Today, that’s not possible as, says Aitken: “We don’t want to add costs into our business model.” However, it would seem logical that Easyjet might allow online changes via easyjet.com once flexible fares are incorporated into its public booking tool.

The ability to switch flights free-of-charge at the last minute may seem small beer, but it’s something that resonates with readers of our online forum (businesstraveller.com/discussion), who complain about British Airways not doing likewise.

The problem is acute for employees of large companies who are tied into corporate policies specifying they book cheaper tickets. Arrive at Heathrow for an earlier BA flight to Edinburgh and ticket desk staff will demand a £60 change fee plus the going rate for the flight, which could be £100 more than the price you originally paid.

Forum contributor seasonedtraveller writes on the “Changing on to an earlier flight home” thread: “Company policy determines which tickets may be purchased – this is not the choice of the traveller. When meetings end before time or are cancelled, getting home earlier becomes a personal choice. But who wants to spend £200 of one’s own money to arrive home a few hours earlier?”

The problem is that Easyjet does not fly to Scotland as frequently as BA. In particular, there are some awkward schedule gaps from Luton and Gatwick, where off-peak flights have been trimmed in recent years. Between Luton and Edinburgh, there is no departure between 0840 and 1815. Coming south, you can’t depart between 0700 and 1815. On Gatwick-Glasgow there’s a gap between 0700 and 1410 and nothing south between 0855 and 1610. In which case, what’s the point in reaching the airport earlier to find there’s no flight to take you home?

Easyjet says that as part of its plan to woo business travellers, it will rectify the gaps starting with this winter’s timetable. For example, there will be an extra flight to Edinburgh from each of its three London airports – Luton, Gatwick and Stansted, and flight frequency on Gatwick-Glasgow will move from three to four a day.

The carrier also says that allocated seating on flights – another benefit that has been requested by readers – is “a matter under review”. So all in all, good news if you are travelling to or from Scotland.

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