Originally Posted by
brunos
I see no other way than having a la carte service on the plane, like Easyjet or Vuelling or old Air Inter.
I think that the pre-ordering of a meal onboard can be a good option for some people, but is incompatible with flexibility (therefore, might be used for outbound flights).
Originally Posted by
brunos
I remember the time when you simply went to the checkin counter and asked to be moved to an earlier flight if your flight was delayed and they would immediately issue the BP. On most tickets, you now need to go to the ticket counter (and there could be long lines), cancel OLCI, reissue the new ticket with a change fee and fare difference (and AF removes cheap fare buckets on flight day). This is not in the spirit of a shuttle and provides no benefit relative to EZY for most pax. And AF need those "most pax" to be profitable, so they need to introduce flexibility to take advantage of their frequency. It is a clear idea to prevent "most pax" to move to an earlier empty flight in case of delays, to make their high fares attractive. But it also means that AF is left to compete only on price with EZY for "most pax". They are not making their frequency to be an attractive benefit.
In order to "protect" their full fare pax, they have moved to increase the inflexibility of their tickets. But given the trend in pax travel, I think that it is creating a missed opportunity.
What comes to mind (as suggested by Orbitmic) is to create a standby procedure for earlier flights. This is already what they implement for airline staff. But it could delay departures. However, anything complicated will be a failure. All that also runs against the cost-reducing trend of removing airport staff intervention.
I can only agree with what you are saying. I think that flexibility should be considered differently when the change happens way before the flight or at the airport. The ticket should be much more flexible when you get to the airport (So 2/3 hours before the flight) for most fares (CLASSIC fares for example), and choosing a prior flight doable on the automatic checkin machine, like it is when you have a full flex fare and are not yet checked in.