I recently flew on Easyjet (flights from London Luton, Stansted, Gatwick, and Geneva to many cities in the UK and Europe). Some things that might work for the U.S. include:

1. seats are cheap, not more expensive to buy a one way seat.
2. food and drinks are sold. Nothing is free. However, how much could AA or DL really save by charging for Coca Cola? One has the mindset to bring food, if desired.
3. Napkins are white, vomit bags are white, the airline magazine is passed out (why?) and later collected (one may keep it if desired).
4. Many passengers have the mindset that their reservations are set in stone. However, there are provisions to change one's flights. I think they claim that they do not overbook. The flights that I took (off peak times) were 90-100% full.


What wouldn't work:
1. The flights are not designed for connecting passengers. If your flight is late and your connecting flight (ticketed separately) is missed, you've lost all your money. This model doesn't work for cities like Wichita or Augusta, GA.
2. The flights are so full that standby (if allowed - it isn't) wouldn't be practical because there wouldn't be many seats empty. If a flight is cancelled, this is a major problem because 150 people are stranded.

Other comments:
1. People do check in 2-3 hours ahead. This is inconvenient and inefficient for business travellers.
2. Carry-on is limited to 5 kg, very tight for the business traveller. I think this is too restrictive.
3. Check-in is weird. 2 lines are set up for each flight. So there's 2 counters for a flight to Paris, another 2 counters for a flight to Malaga, etc. I'm not sure if this saves money.

I also took an Iberia/Air Nostrum flight. The 50 seat plane had 2 flight attendants and drinks were served in glassware.

its a good system, but not for all.

Its not a hub and spoke mode--really a point to point.

They don't try to serve Wichita--more like ORD, LGA, MIA, etc.

AirTran has many things in common, but not all. Ex. no premium for one way.

EZjet prices are cheap if purchased far in advance, and then rise as the plane fills. Most passengers have bought their tickets weeks or more in advance. These are not business travelers.

They have figured out how to provide a service efficiently, even more so probably than SW and AirTran, and if someone did it here it would play havoc with inefficient carriers who fly the same routes.

I haven't flown them. But I do admire AirTran. They have a premium cabin, for instance, which is nice. You can pay a good deal and buy a "business class" ticket, and have a fully changable ticket, or you can by a coach non-refundable ticket, which unlike the majors is not a "use it or lose it" affair, as it is with Easyjet.

And AirTran does use a hub and spoke system for many flights. They even make a profit!

I think the low fare airlines like Easyjet are cherry picking the city pairs that make them money. Clearly there are tons of city pairs they will never fly, and therefore room for the "majors" or for low fare airlines more like AirTran than EasyJet.

Just remember that EasyJet and RyanAir and just about every successful low-fare carrier have (proudly) modelled themselves after a certain airline based in Texas.

Some notes from EasyJet land.

Actually EZY are a lot more sophisticated than suggested here. They now dominate the London to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast markets, long the 3 major domestic business routes in the UK - they have completely driven BA off the last route. If you take them at 08.00 in the morning on these routes you will find them as well filled with business travellers as the equivalent BA/BMI flights at these times.

These passengers are certainly not paying the famous cheap fares, I assure you! (current on-line quote for a flight tomorrow afternoon to Edinburgh is �91.50 one way. Fare in a month's time is �6.50). Easyjet's cheaper fares keep the aircraft going off-peak, and those flights I suppose are those that get favoured by visitors from across the Atlantic, who then think it looks like a leisure market operation.

BTW - why are the mags handed out and then collected? Because the advertisers pay per passenger carried, but the airline pays for the actual printing. So reusing the mags again and again, preventing them being carried off the aircraft, saves costs. It also aids the 20-minute turnarounds because that is one less item in the seatback check that doesn't have to be done on the ground.

Airlines in the US sometimes charge hundreds of dollars for a short flight. So EZY's Edinburgh fare that you quoted looks still looks like a bargain. My flight to Spain was booked a few days before but still was cheap, though not as cheap as the adverts that I saw around London.

Thanks for the explanation about why magazines are collected.

The seatbacks are almost empty. Just a plane motion sickness bag and a safety card. If there's anything else, it's probably rubbish.

Agree EZY is cherry picking. They are point to point, SW and AirTran are hub models mostly.

Cherry picking can be successful but is limited. As you grow your customer base, they will want to go more places. I would submit SW has outgrown the cherry pick model. As this happens, your next customer comes from a major, and you need to convince them that your lower prices offset the value/cost of a more limited network and fewer departures.

Other airlines also cherry pick. Look at all the routes that the majors have left and either didn't replace them or let the commuter airlines operate them instead. That is cherry picking.

Why does AA fly lots of transcons like JFK-LAX but does not fly PDX-BOS. Isn't that cherry picking?