37 easyJet pax told to get off because plane too heavy!

[tolipanebas]

Flying LCC is a matter of big numbers: if you fly 10 time a year alone and they screw up once, the extra costs you incur will be easily won back on the other 9 flights. But if you travel with your family just once a year with your spouse and 3 children, don't do it, because when it goes wrong, you're in for 5 times a big surprise.Stij

Actually, when you fly that often you do it mostly professionally and you (or your employer) can't allow for the risk of being let down regularly either, so the only people that should risk flying on a LCC are those that are going somewhere where they don't absolutely need to be.

Joe Average from the UK going on a cheap booze excursion to Latvia for instance, or 2 young backpackers going to Carcassone for a couple of weeks hiking. None of them will really bother much about arriving a day late.

But if you're going somewhere for business (the frequent traveller), or going on a fully booked holiday with your entire family, NEVER fly LCCs! One hick-up and they make you loose a fortune, while happily doing what they are supposed to do: refund your ticket and then show you the way out... deep into the mess.

[regi]

Flying LCC is a matter of big numbers: if you fly 10 time a year alone and they screw up once, the extra costs you incur will be easily won back on the other 9 flights. But if you travel with your family just once a year with your spouse and 3 children, don't do it, because when it goes wrong, you're in for 5 times a big surprise.Stij

Actually, when you fly that often you do it mostly professionally and you (or your employer) can't allow for the risk of being let down regularly either, so the only people that should risk flying on a LCC are those that are going somewhere where they don't absolutely need to be.

Joe Average from the UK going on a cheap booze excursion to Latvia for instance, or 2 young backpackers going to Carcassone for a couple of weeks hiking. None of them will really bother much about arriving a day late.

But if you're going somewhere for business (the frequent traveller), or going on a fully booked holiday with your entire family, NEVER fly LCCs! One hick-up and they make you loose a fortune, while happily doing what they are supposed to do: refund your ticket and then show you the way out... deep into the mess.

Exactly how I think about it and act accordingly. My first Ryanair flight ended in disaster on the return leg with a 4 hour delay, causing missing a business meeting at Charleroi. So I followed the regulation of one of my biggest customers who forbids personnel to fly LCC anytime.
I took another Rynair flight for private reasons ( 250 € price difference with SN or Alitalia ) from Eindhoven and that went fine. There was no big time pressure on that private trip.
I have taken numerous LCC flights afterwards only for leasure ( Nokair, Airasia, Kulula ) and had to live with at least 50% delays from 2 to 4 hours. But each time no big deal.
Small companies force their personnel to fly LCC to foreign trade fairs or customer visits. It is getting a topic now at trade fairs in Frankfurt, Paris or Hannover.
"Hey, where is John?"
"I just received a text message that his flight is cancelled and he has to drive from Birmingham to Frankfurt"
Great
I have noticed it already several times at trade fairs where I go for several days. Some small stands are unmanned. Hannover Messe 2010 was exceptional because of the ash cloud, causing the absense of many Asian exhibitors. But at Achema and Midest I talked to people whose stand wasn't manned the day before and EACH time it was because of a hick up with LCC. I should have kept a record as proof, I know.

[earthman]

A few years ago my mother's flight with Sky Europe (they went bankrupt since then) was cancelled. This was a flight sometime just before christmas. They offered a seat on a flight on december 28th instead... merry christmas. She managed to get a standby ticket with KLM for the next day though, if I recall correctly on the 24th or so, so still in time for christmas.

Also a few years ago, my morning flight with LOT got cancelled due to fog or whatever they could come up with. They offered me a seat on the 13:-something flight with KLM instead. This would make me miss my scheduled meeting anyway, so I asked whether I could take a flight a few days later (staying the weekend), sure no problem. The fun part was that previously I had asked them about rebooking the flight to monday anyway, but it would have cost me more than I wanted to pay for it, but thanks to the fog I got rebooked for free.

[airazurxtror]

That's where the mess comes into being as no LCC will help you the way a full service airline does

Judging by what happened during the latest mess at Brussels airport, the so-called full service airlines don't help you all that much.
I mercifully did not have to use BRU at that moment but I looked at the TV news, and they were showing lots of distressed passengers : no plane, no information, nobody there to help or inform, no meal or hotel room, sleeping on the ground, the Red Cross called to feed and help them, baggage late or missing, and so on...
I don't see how an LCC help could have been worse.

[airazurxtror]

Flying LCC is a matter of big numbers: if you fly 10 time a year alone and they screw up once, the extra costs you incur will be easily won back on the other 9 flights. But if you travel with your family just once a year with your spouse and 3 children, don't do it, because when it goes wrong, you're in for 5 times a big surprise.

I flew some 80 times alone on RYR last year, plus a few flights with easyJet and Jetairfly, and they all of them did not screw me up, not even once (and with at least two flights on the same day, sometimes three or four).
You have to be really unlucky to be screwed up on your one and only flight of the year - at least with Ryanair (I am told that easyJet has become much less sure at the moment).

[tolipanebas]

That's where the mess comes into being as no LCC will help you the way a full service airline does

Judging by what happened during the latest mess at Brussels airport, the so-called full service airlines don't help you all that much.
I mercifully did not have to use BRU at that moment but I looked at the TV news, and they were showing lots of distressed passengers : no plane, no information, nobody there to help or inform, no meal or hotel room, sleeping on the ground, the Red Cross called to feed and help them, baggage late or missing, and so on...
I don't see how an LCC help could have been worse.

Not only are you now taking example of a Europeanwide transport infrastructure collapse due to heavy snowfall, something which is just a tad worse than overfueling a single plane I should say, but also are you asuming quite a lot of things there: firstly, you're assuming those pax you saw were pax from full service airlines (mind you, there are plenty of LCCs and charter airlines at BRU too) and secondly, you're assuming those pax from full service airlines staying overnight in BRU were eligible for entry into Shengen and could thus go to a hotel.

But we got your message, all right: according to you, a LCC like FR offers as good customer service in case of irregularities as full service airlines. Good luck trying to get rebooked with your Ryanair ticket onto an other metal flight in case of cancellation, for instance.

[airazurxtror]

Good luck trying to get rebooked with your Ryanair ticket onto an other metal flight in case of cancellation, for instance.

A few years ago, I have had two flights cancelled by Ryanair, and I'll tell you candidly what happened.
One was from Bergamo to Charleroi : I was rebooked on a Pisa-Charleroi the next day (no seat available on a BGY-CRL before two days).
Another one was a Dublin-Charleroi : I was rebooked on the same flight the day after.
In both cases, the delay cost me some 125 euros (hotel, food, train to Pisa, one more day of parking at CRL), that is to say, on average, less than 1 euro per Ryanair flight until now...
For me, it's good enough. But : everyone his own taste.

[Stij]

Judging by what happened during the latest mess at Brussels airport, the so-called full service airlines don't help you all that much.
I mercifully did not have to use BRU at that moment but I looked at the TV news, and they were showing lots of distressed passengers : no plane, no information, nobody there to help or inform, no meal or hotel room, sleeping on the ground, the Red Cross called to feed and help them, baggage late or missing, and so on...
I don't see how an LCC help could have been worse.

Airazurxtror,

read what I wrote above: our families travel plans on LH and BA were saved and all expenses incurred paid back.

If you can't see how an LCC help could have been worse, well... I feel kind of sorry for you on one hand... on the other hand I'm jealous, because that proves that you never had the pleasure to experience a nice FR cancellation in the high season!

I had that pleasure a couple of times and FR response is basically "F*ck y**!, pay us 5€ to get your 10€ back from us and now pay a full-fare ticket on a normal carrier or hitchhike home!" Reading your last post, I think you must have been unaware of this.

Cheers,

Stij

[earthman]

I think the point was not 'LCCs offer excellent customer service in case of irregularities' but rather 'non-LCCs can be just as bad'.

[tolipanebas]

airazurxtxor, what you describe there is the normal way of doing things in case of irregularities at a LCC and I don't blame them for it: having agreements with other airlines does cost a lot of money and they simply can't afford that.

As I've said before: a LCC can only offer very poor customer service, as customer service is a very costly service to run for an airline, something which many people don't seem to know. Not only is it a labour intensive process to deal with individual travel problems, but it often also incurs serious additional expenses to come to a satisfying solution and so logically LCCs have cut back on it as much as they can.

in the examples you've given, a full service airline would always rebook you on another airline, preferably non-stop, but if not possible, through a hub like FRA, MUC, ZRH (or other, depending the alliance your ticketing airline belongs to).

Now, if you don't really have to be at your destination on the date of arrival, then you can live with the occasional setback at a LCC like you've described here, but if you're heading to VCE because you're a businessman with a project nearing its deadline or because you and your family have to catch a holiday cruiseship leaving from VCE the next morning, then don't take the risk. It's as simple as that really and I don't know what is so controversial about it?

LCCs are a good way to travel for people going places they don't really need to go to, and that's something which can't be stressed enough, because quite a lot of people simply aren't aware of this simple rule and are thus in for a terrible shock when their flight gets cancelled!

BTW, we regularly use the term LCC and you also seem to use the FR-sponsored terms HCC (high-cost carriers) and ECC (exorbitant cost carriers.) I prefer the term FSA (Full Service Airline) and NSA (No Service Airline), as ALL airlines have costs in line with the services they offer and so the real differentiator is the service people want, the rest (the cost difference) is just a consequence of it really. Better name things by their real name, IMHO.

[airazurxtror]

a LCC can only offer very poor customer service,

In my view, he best service one can offer to the customer is ponctuality and a good price.
Ryanair offers both.
Its ponctuality is very good, I speak not from statistics, but from personal experience.
Its prices are very low indeed; here again, I speak from personal experience.
For instance, one can buy a return trip to Dublin for as little as 20 euros or even less - at Aer Lingus it's 75 euros at the very least.
Many are the flights I have got for 10, 8 or 6 euros (all included) and even some for 3 euros.
If an FR flight is cancelled, you are on your own, agreed. That would be worrying if there were many such flights. But they are extremely rare - in my own experience, one out of every 180 FR flights ...
But, as I have said, everyone his own taste ...

[earthman]

I find the discussion about LCCs very similar to a lot of other discussions which involve superficially similar products where one costs much more than the other, but comes with additional benefits which you won't need most of the time, but those few times you would need them you really wish you had gone with the other option. This includes things like training pilots for rare but dangerous weather conditions or defects. Or (not) building an earthquake-resistant building in a fault zone.

[sn26567]

After easyJet, now passengers are forced to leave a Belgian registered Fokker 50 of CityJet (not an LCC but a respected subsidiary of AF/KLM) due to too heavy load. Sorry, French only.

Passagers débarqués cause poids d'un avion de Air France

Le 15 Jan 2011 à 8:59

Londres (Royaume-Uni) - Un avion de la compagnie aérienne irlandaise Cityjet, qui effectuait un vol pour le compte de la compagnie aérienne française Air France, a dû demander à plusieurs des passagers du bord de descendre quelques instants avant le départ de l'aéroport international City Airport de Londres (Royaume-Uni) à cause d'un poids excessif de l'appareil.

L'avion, un Fokker F50, immatriculé OO-VLO, vol WX5175, qui devait effectuer la liaison entre l'aéroport international City Airport de Londres et l'aéroport régional de Dundee (Royaume-Uni) avec un nombre de passagers qui n'a pas été indiqué, était prêt au départ, vers 16h00, heure locale, lorsque le commandant de bord a annoncé qu'à cause d'une surcharge de l'appareil et du mauvais temps, il était dans l'obligation de faire descendre plusieurs passagers dont le nombre n'a pas été communiqué mais qui serait au nombre de quatre si l'on en croit les témoignages d'autres passagers à bord.

Ces derniers ont été choisis dans l'ordre inverse de l'enregistrement et ont dû quitter l'appareil. Ils ont été replacés sur le vol suivant et ont obtenu des compensations. Les raisons qui ont fait que l'appareil ait été trop lourd n'ont pas été indiqué. Les autres passagers indiquent que le commandant de bord n'a cessé de s'excuser de cet incident qu'il a lui-même appelé 'une débâcle'.

Source: crash aérien

[Desert Rat]

This happens everyday all over the world on LCC, legacy,even cargo flights...

But insted of disembarking the passengers, I would have disembarked the luggage and fly the pax to their destinations...

Luggage will follow...

[fcw]

This happens everyday all over the world on LCC, legacy,even cargo flights...

But insted of disembarking the passengers, I would have disembarked the luggage and fly the pax to their destinations...

Luggage will follow...

Maybe you should read the first post DR,: "But unbeknown to the remaining passengers, their luggage was also removed from the flight to save weight"

Back on topic: an easy-friend told me they don't have the option of preselecting the fuel quantity in the cockpit. They display it, by means of a little booklet, in front of the F/O's window. They needed 06.0 tons, but the refueller read it as 16.0 tons because the zero was partially hidden by another object...
Defueling was not an option as there was no time due to crew duty limitations and /or curfew issues.

[Desert Rat]

Ooops missed it....but you need to be a jerk to pump 16tons instead of 6 tons ...particularly when you do the refueling days after days for the same operators/destinations...Anyway

[regi]

Thank you for the City Jet article which shows clearly the difference between a LCC and an airline of which the passengers expect that in case there is something wrong, the airline will do its best to sort it out. In this case, it started with excuses, rebooking on the next flights and compensation.
This doesn't mean that those 4 passengers were jumping in the air of happiness. But the chance that the 4 passengers will walk away from City Jet is much smaller than the 37 dumped Easy Jet passengers.

[airazurxtror]

Thank you for the City Jet article which shows clearly the difference between a LCC and an airline of which the passengers expect that in case there is something wrong, the airline will do its best to sort it out.

The difference between a low-cost carrier and a high-cost carrier is the price of the ticket : 1 to 5 or 10.
Most of the time, the high-cost carrier coldly pockets the difference.
When there is an incident, the HCC endeavours to do something more for his pax.
It's only natural - otherwise, it would be still more of a highway robbery.

[Stij]

Either,

- you're MOL
- you work for MOL's propaganda department
- you have been brainwashed by MOL's propaganda department

In any case, your statement is so lame, the discussion isn't worth it.

Cheers,

Stij

[tolipanebas]

The difference between a low-cost carrier and a high-cost carrier is the price of the ticket : 1 to 5 or 10.
Most of the time, the high-cost carrier coldly pockets the difference.
When there is an incident, the HCC endeavours to do something more for his pax.
It's only natural - otherwise, it would be still more of a highway robbery.

In case of flight irregularities, the High Cost Airline quickly becomes the one with the lowest ticket prices....