Loyalty in European carriers

flyingcow · Post by **flyingcow** » 30 Jun 2004, 06:32

I dont know if someone has asked all of you the following question: are you Europeans "nationalistic" or "loyal" to the airline your have in your country?. Lets say that you are from France and you are flying to Italy, do you fly in Alitalia or in AF just because it is from your country?.I know that if you fly from France you will have many more options with AF that with any other carrier, but what happens if that carrier is in fact worse than the competition?. I have flown to Europe 4 times and I have been in KLM, AF, Lufthansa, SAS, Air Europe, Finnair, Air Littoral, and Karr Air. So far I dont complain but it is funny that many carriers sell you food instead of just giving it away as with carriers in America. Of all the airlines I have flown in Europe my favourite is SAS followed by Lufhtansa. I didnt liked KLM service and Air Europe is just very very tight in leg room, very unconfortable.

Post by **sn26567** » 30 Jun 2004, 11:11

Interesting topic.

I would say that people tend to prefer their home carrier. They will subscribe to the FF programme of their home carrier and try to get as many flights as possible with them.

But when not all destinations are covered by that home carrier (e.g. SN Brussels Airlines does not fly from Brussels to Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Hanover, which are a Lufthanse monopoly), than they will subscribe to the FF programme of a second, and maybe a third carrier and also select flights from those carriers in preference to others.

Other factors can intervene: I will look for the type of plane flown (I will try to avoid the Avros of some airlines tat put 6 instead of 5 seats abreast), and for the service on board (free meals or not), but most people don't care.

For me personlly, I will always try to fly SN first, LH second (except on Avros), airlines that participate in SN's privilege programme third (IB, BA, AY, AA, TP, ...).

Comet · Post by **Comet** » 30 Jun 2004, 11:56

I am adventurous when I fly, and always try to fly on an airline from the country I am flying into, rather than the country I am from (which would mean flying British Airways, British Midland etc). That has allowed me to fly with a diverse range of carriers which I would have missed out on if I had only flown on the British carriers.

I have experienced great flights with Iberia, Cyprus Airways, Icelandair, Finnair, Air France, Sabena, VLM, SN Brussels Airlines as well as British Airways and their subsidiary British Airtours.

I probably would not fly Aer Lingus again to Dublin, as I am not impressed with the lack of service, but Luxair offer flights between Manchester and Dublin which would also give me my first flight in an ERJ, so I would look at them next time.

Also, when we used to go to Iceland, the national carrier Icelandair had a monopoly on flights into the country, so you had no choice of who to fly with, but it was largely a great experience!

Avro · Post by **Avro** » 30 Jun 2004, 13:21

I think that people are flying on their home carrier for 2 main reasons:

First of all their home carrier is often well known in the specific country.
If you ask normal citizens of those countries I'm sure they won't know the name of many airlines, while their home base airline will be the first name they'll tell you.
Secondly, the home base carrier often has a lot more destinations from that airport than other airlines. People will then (like André said) subscribe to the FF program of their home base carrier to win some miles.

But the behavior I just discribed is in my opinion slowely dissapearing in Europe. People will first of all look at the price, and try to find cheap flights on the internet. People won't remain as "loyal" as before and will more easily switch to different airlines, since the price factor is more and more becoming the number one concern.

Regards
Chris
8)

chunk · Post by **chunk** » 01 Jul 2004, 11:48

Being from Scotland I always used to fly on British Caledonian to Dubai when I was a kid....my dad would insist on it. Once BA took them over we started going on whoever gave the best deal....

I now make sure that I am on KLM whenever possible now for a number of reasons..

1. We only have three choices from aberdeen on international flights- KLM, Air France or BA - actually make that two now....

2. Air France only started about a year ago to Aberdeen and it is using those wee RJ's. Don;t like them....

3. BA stink. They go through Europe's worst airport and give you no points for travel unless you buy full fare tickets....their ground staff are hopeless and their over-riding arrogance p*sses me off. Too many bad experiences to cover here......

4. KLM give you full points on whatever fare and Schiphol is one of the best airports in the world and their staff are always very friendly. Well they are to me anyway.....

If Virgin flew to anywhere I go then I would consider but otherwise....

Post by **sn26567** » 01 Jul 2004, 17:19

Apparently Scotland has not reconciled with England yet...

chunk · Post by **chunk** » 01 Jul 2004, 17:55

Hey yes we have.....thats why we were all devastated when Portugal won last week. Not!! Cheers Switzerland.....we were getting nervous up here!

BA is apparently British not English....but sh*te all the same - doesn;t matter where they are from I will happily say the same about Continental Airlines! BMI have always been ok (at least when i flew on em) on the other hand!

Jumbolino · Post by **Jumbolino** » 01 Jul 2004, 18:03

I never supported any national carrier which was flying where I lived and be my friend OS is a pity

but I loved eurowings and Air Littoral

and this times seems now to me like decades ago

btw. I found only a few days ago old EW (op by EW on behalf of LH) and FU tkt's ....

CU Ju.

Comet · Post by **Comet** » 01 Jul 2004, 19:56

chunk wrote:Hey yes we have.....thats why we were all devastated when Portugal won last week. Not!! Cheers Switzerland.....we were getting nervous up here!

BA is apparently British not English....but sh*te all the same - doesn;t matter where they are from I will happily say the same about Continental Airlines! BMI have always been ok (at least when i flew on em) on the other hand!

And some of us English thought it was great when Belgium beat Scotland in the qualifying for world cup 2002

And I also celebrated when Portugal beat England because I am a Belgium supporter!

Jumbolino · Post by **Jumbolino** » 01 Jul 2004, 20:03

Louise, I thought that this is a thread about european (airline) carrier's and not about football, btw I have a collegue from greece here (as well as one from gent ....and one from south africe, one from india ....) and the guy is quite happy
and one collegue (an old school friend of myself) is referee of the austrian (football) bundesliga (first liga) and he beats that portugal will win

I think he has quite good cards by now

Comet · Post by **Comet** » 01 Jul 2004, 21:51

I know what this thread is about, I was just countering the comment from our Scottish member, trying to "neutralise" any anti-English sentiment which many people like to show.

The English people are the only people in Europe who are supposed to happily sit back and take cack from everyone else (did you know it is frowned upon in our country to be patriotic and fly the English flag?)

And before long any anti-English sentiment is narrowed down to anti-Yorkshire snipes, especially about our dialect!

A318 · Post by **A318** » 01 Jul 2004, 22:56

fftopic:

On topic again!

I don't fly the national carrier anymore since we lost it recently to France

Serious, I don't care which airline I fly but I am avoiding some of them.
No to, not so trustable airlines, for example Avianca or those rare African, Arabic and Russian airlines

Defenitly no French airlines!

If I have the choice on intercontinental flights, between wide body Airbus or wide body Boeing, I choose the airline that is flying with the Boeing machine since I really don't like the Airbus ones.

For the rest everything, full carrier, low cost carrier, Spanish, English, Irish, American, Asian etc etc.

Greetz,

Erwin

Avro · Post by **Avro** » 01 Jul 2004, 23:30

For the rest everything, full carrier, low cost carrier, Spanish, English, Irish, American, Asian etc etc.

And Belgian ?

A318 · Post by **A318** » 01 Jul 2004, 23:42

Avro wrote:
For the rest everything, full carrier, low cost carrier, Spanish, English, Irish, American, Asian etc etc.
And Belgian ?

Yep also Belgian, like I said etc etc etc

Greetz,

Erwin

Sabena_690 · Post by **Sabena_690** » 02 Jul 2004, 10:00

The airline I take is based on several factors:
- price
- convenience (are connections possible for example

)
- comfort on board
- service (as well on the ground as in the air)
- variety in the logbook
- and sometimes aircraft type (for example, if I would fly from LHR to FRA tomorrow, I'd prefer a BA B763 over a LH A320)
- ...

No nationalistic reasons play a role in the airline I choose. For example: when LH offers me a CRJ between BRU and MUC, I'll gladly take LH for variety in the logbook.

Frederic

chunk · Post by **chunk** » 02 Jul 2004, 13:43

...and I don;t hate england either. Its called rivalry - ask a a dutch person if they want the germans to win. I rest my case. Either way - if BA were any good I would fly on them so nationalistic reasons don;t / cannot exist now. If they did all the dutch would stop flying KLM right?

TWA · Post by **TWA** » 02 Jul 2004, 14:41

When talking about travelling with your home carrier, you may consider Belgians(especially Flemish) as the least "nationalistic" people on the globe, even during the Sabena era.

I flew SN only 2 times in my life , besides other carriers were always given as first choice in several travel agencies. I got tickets to the US on BA via LHR, KL via AMS, and a lot of IB via MAD. I only used Sabena once to BCN and another time to DUB (for work, normally they put us on EI, nowadays it's even Ryanair)

TWA

Post by **sn26567** » 06 Jul 2004, 09:26

TWA wrote:When talking about travelling with your home carrier, you may consider Belgians(especially Flemish) as the least "nationalistic" people on the globe, even during the Sabena era.

It's true that if Belgians (and especially their Government) were a little bit more nationalistic, Sabena would still be flying. It's also true that Flemish are less nationalistic than the others in Belgium (otherwise their regional government would have invested in SN Brussels, like Wallonia and Brussels).

However you should not generalise: many Belgians are proud of their airlines (especially SN Brussels, which is considered as the flag airline, successor of Sabena) and try to fly them as often as possible.