[MrMichael]

Canucklad, would I be right therefore that you used the mouthy Irish one because it was the only option?

Sort of unrelated, but here is a joke I heard:

Say what you will about Ryanair, but their tight fuel reserve policy guarantees a search radius of not more than 50 miles if one of their planes went missing.

[AMcWhirter]

Hello DavidGordon10.

Thank you. You are quite correct re Lufthansa short-haul. I should have made it clear that I was really referring to long-haul. Lufthansa is less of a business carrier on short-haul routes nowadays outside its core FRA and MUC hub services.

Hello transtaxman,

You are correct regarding GermanWings. But it is taking longer than expected for Lufthansa (ie the core brand) to hive off its non FRA and MUC routes.

The situation has since become more complex because Lufthansa has also decided to use Eurowings (another budget brand) to also take over some routes.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/07/10/airlines-lufthansa-strategy-idINL6N0PL33N20140710

Hello canucklad,

Two other budget Canadian carriers you forget to mention were Wardair and, more recently, Zoom (which operated into LGW and one or two other UK regional airports).

Correct. Rouge is just a division of AirCanada using up some of its older planes. Just like BEA Airtours (with redundant Comet 4s and B707s in the ’70s).

As others have mentioned, you do need back-up for long-haul low-cost. Norwegian, with 90 mins turnarounds at busy airports like JFK and LAX, has failed to realise this. I suppose it can’t afford to have back-up planes sitting on the ground because new B787s are expensive. Norwegian seemed to think that a new plane would give high reliability “straight out of the box.”

————————————————————————————–

I meant to say that my Amsterdam-Gatwick flight with BEA Airtours, in the ’70s when taxes/fees were minimal, cost around £5 (five pounds) one-way. The BEA Airtours flight Gatwick-Bangkok cost a few hundred pounds.

In the ’70s, budget carriers like BEA Airtours were forbidden by IATA (who controlled the price and distribution of air tickets at that time) from selling direct to the public.

So tickets were sold by travel agents who either bought blocks of seats (for common-interest travel purposes) or else packaged the flight with an accommodation voucher for an awful hotel (which you weren’t expected to use) or cut-price multi-bed room which, again, was issued purely to circumvent the rule.

[canucklad]

Well Alex, I’m having a Friday afternoon chuckle to myself……..I’ve actually flown on Zoom, and for that matter Wardair.

I was really disappointed when Zoom went under as I could fly from GLA direct to YVR, and for the money paid they were excellent….and probably better than BA’s economy offering.

Other Bter’s might think I’m losing my mind or had a liquid lunch, but Wardair used to serve up a 3 course meal in their all “Y” configured 747’s. And on Royal Doulton no less…. Now Nationair on the other hand….Think Stalag 13 and you’re close…Good riddance.

IMO ,Lufthansa opting to “cheap size” is pretty much saying “We’ve given up the ghost”. Like BA management, Carsten Spohr and his team fall into the reactive, easy option camp rather than working out new strategies to differentiate themselves from the LCC’s. ….Eventually it will come back and bite them on the bum……

[AMcWhirter]

Yes, cancuklad, Wardair was good.

Tend to agree with you re Lufthansa. It’s not nimble enough to make a success of budget air travel.

[DavidGordon10]

Alex

Nostalgia … “…blocks of seats (for common-interest travel purposes) or else packaged the flight with an accommodation voucher for an awful hotel (which you weren’t expected to use) “

I remember the travel agent saying – whatever you do, don’t even try to stay in this “hotel”

[Bath_VIP]

Canucklad,

Ditto on Wardair. My first ever transatlantic flight was with them from Newcastle to Toronto on a B747. The service was excellent and is still one of the best Economy experiences I have had.

[MrMichael]

For some reason I have it in my head that Wardair and Braniff were related, but a quick search finds nothing to confirm this. Is this my mind playing tricks on me or was there some connection?

[AnthonyDunn]

@MrMichael – 09/08/2014 10:50 GMT

Salad days… Your question reminds me of some very agreeable Summers spent working for British Airtours at LGW in the late 70s. We did the ground handling for both Braniff and Wardair Canada. I could not imagine two more disparate operations. Wardair was a very tightly run, quality outfit with extremely high standards across all aspects of their operations be those on the ground or in the air. This extended to physically shipping a spare engine (literally slung under one wing) over to Gatwick before each Summer season so that they (BA Engineering) could even do a whole engine replacement if necessary.

In contrast, Braniff used to fly the same (their then only B747-100 series) aircraft between DFW-LGW-DFW seven days a week. Consequently, with the time in the air, the aircraft received insufficient maintenance until it would finally go tech at Gatwick and it would disappear into the BA 747 hanger for an entire 24 hours. We would then spend the rest of the week working off the delay until the same would happen again a week hence. With the overtime I pocketed, I enjoyed a lifestyle at university that it took decades to achieve subsequently!

Wardair: consummately professional. Braniff: a bunch of cowboys. And it would be news to me that they were both owned by the same concern.

[Author]

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