If you want to sell flight-only tickets you have to do it on scheduled flights. So you lose the flexibility of the charter. It's more complex than just fill empty seats it requires a change in scheduling. I'm sure if it becomes a succes, and it looks like, they will invest more.
greets
Thomas Cook unbelievable prices!
Moderator: Latest news team
-
TCAS_climb
- Posts: 413
- Joined: 04 Jan 2004, 00:00
As I understand it, the core business of Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium is to fly the holiday makers of Thomas Cook (the T/O & affiliates). If this means that most of the flights don't have much capacity left, and no additional aircraft are foreseen, it doesn't make much sense to create and promote an online booking system with all the bells and whistles on the homepage, similar to what scheduled carriers do on their website:
- this service has a cost (yes, cheaper than any other mean of selling tickets, but it's clearly not for free)
- what's the point if most of the customers can't find a seat ?
As weird as it may seem, scheduled carriers do not like load factors reaching 100%. This means that an unknown number of customers (it could be a quite large number) are turned down because the flight is full, and go to the competitors (if any). Attracting a new customer is 10 times more expensive than keeping one you already have, so you really don't wan't to see customers going away from your company.
If Thomas Cook doesn't have any plan to increase capacity to promote a low cost operation, it makes some sense however to avoid big publicity and front-page "in your face" online booking systems. They already have regular flights to several Mediterranean destinations, but I don't know how they're doing.
- this service has a cost (yes, cheaper than any other mean of selling tickets, but it's clearly not for free)
- what's the point if most of the customers can't find a seat ?
As weird as it may seem, scheduled carriers do not like load factors reaching 100%. This means that an unknown number of customers (it could be a quite large number) are turned down because the flight is full, and go to the competitors (if any). Attracting a new customer is 10 times more expensive than keeping one you already have, so you really don't wan't to see customers going away from your company.
If Thomas Cook doesn't have any plan to increase capacity to promote a low cost operation, it makes some sense however to avoid big publicity and front-page "in your face" online booking systems. They already have regular flights to several Mediterranean destinations, but I don't know how they're doing.
Small correction : CityBird had of course e-tickets for the scheduled flights to the US and Mexico, starting way back in April 1997. Reservations were mainly made directly through the call center of CityBird. But is is correct that no seats were sold by CTB on the charterflights, this was the business of the then NUR group.
rwy25r
rwy25r
As correctly pointed out by TCAS_climb, introducing a good online service has a cost, so it is just making a cost/benefit analysis. If the airplanes are already almost full, and most online tickets are cheap, it can be that the extra sold tickets can maybe not even ofset the extra cost.
Furthermore, what if - due to the better online booking engine - more people get the cheaper flight-only tickets, and after there aren't any seats left on some flights for more beneficial all-in packages (flights, hotel, ...)? Then they could even lose money because of the more convenient bookingengine that mostly self cheap tickets... That cannot be what they are aiming for! 8) At the end Thomas Cook (Airlines) Belgium is still part of a whole group and it is the benefit of the whole group that counts!
Doing like the others isn't always the best, in business it is all about differentiating from your competitors. Maybe TAB has just a different businessplan than TCW?
Greets,
Pieter
Furthermore, what if - due to the better online booking engine - more people get the cheaper flight-only tickets, and after there aren't any seats left on some flights for more beneficial all-in packages (flights, hotel, ...)? Then they could even lose money because of the more convenient bookingengine that mostly self cheap tickets... That cannot be what they are aiming for! 8) At the end Thomas Cook (Airlines) Belgium is still part of a whole group and it is the benefit of the whole group that counts!
Doing like the others isn't always the best, in business it is all about differentiating from your competitors. Maybe TAB has just a different businessplan than TCW?
Greets,
Pieter