lin821

Maybe. Maybe not.

In you opinion, how many of those 110,000,000 annual pax are FTers or will frequent FT?

For the sake of argument, RyanAir is ranked the 8th World's largest airline by scheduled passengers. There is no designated forum for the 7th largest airline on FT yet. By this line of reasoning from you, wouldn't TB vote on a new forum proposal/motion for China Southern Airlines before considering this current proposal?

IMHO, passenger load is not the biggest determinant factor w/r/t forum creation on FT.

BTW, Other Asian, Australian and South Pacific Frequent Flyer Programs Forum is currently the host forum for China Southern Airlines on FT.

NickB

EZY's slogan, which you can read right on their website frontpage, is that they are "Europe's leading low cost airline". It is a member of elfaa, the "European Low Fares Airline Association" together with Ryanair, flybe, wizzair, vueling, bmibaby, jet2, transavia, sverigeflyg, and norwegian. It very clearly sees itself and presents itself as an LCC, not as a full service carrier. And it is also generally regarded as such by the flying public, whether they use them or not. It may be a much superior airline to FR but it still is an LCC.

If the issue is one of visibility, as has been suggested by a couple of posters in this thread, perhaps the budget travel forum could be renamed the low fare carriers and budget travel forum? imo, it would not be an inappropriate title given that a substantial number of posts in the forum are about LCCs?

Roger

They did. It changed as they now have a new credit card partner, GE Money (in the UK). Current offer is 'Earn up to 5 bonus flights in your first year'.
http://www.ryanair.com/GE/?banner=R0...276&gemid1=276

EasyJet were contemplating something along the lines you suggest.Five useful points.

judolphin

I don't think it truly matters how many current FTers fly are among that number. I mean, why would anyone be active in a message board that doesn't cater to them at all? This would be about attracting new users, not so much about serving existing ones.

Enter "Delta Skymiles" in Google. FlyerTalk.com comes up as the #9 result. All results above flyertalk are either Delta or American Express. That's crazy.


I'm picturing flyertalk.com coming up #3, #4 or #5 on Google searches for easyJet or RyanAir. You don't think that's a huge potential new market for FT?

Besides, who knows if it'll take off? What does it matter? I fly EZY in Europe and I'm very active on FT, and I'm sure there are others. There is really no risk involved. It's at least a worthwhile experiment. Give it a 6-month test run. If it doesn't work, retire the forum(s). Aren't there discontinued forums all over the place here?

To answer your question directly, I could be wrong but I would guess there are more English speakers who fly RyanAir/EZY than China Southern.

On the other hand, if people would use it, if it would make FT better, if it brings in more page views and ad revenue for the site and value for new and existing members, I'm all for adding a China Southern board as well. Why not?

Again: Southwest, Airtran, JetBlue, Frontier, Midwest, etc., etc., etc. are also all LCCs with their own forums.

I think you're saying it would diminish the FlyerTalk brand? I don't understand how having such boards would hurt FT; having WN, FL and B6 boards certainly haven't hurt FT.

I understand what you're saying. I think people post in budget forums for these airlines because there is currently no place else.

If you look at the DL, WN, AA, etc. forums, I would say less than half the threads are about FF programs -- they're about missed flights, complaints, a few compliments, deals, reviews, travel experiences, questions, etc. In other words, about the airlines themselves, not the loyalty programs. Why not have a child or sister section to "Airline Programs" called "Airlines without Mileage Programs"?

lin821

First things first. I know nothing about China Southern Airlines. It was just a good counter-example for an argument about passenger load in this case.

Secondly, the logic of passenger load and language preference (i.e. English speakers) doesn't hold too much water on FT (see the preliminary data in my next paragraph.)

The hard data on FT doesn't support your "conclusion."

I just used FT Search to compare "RyanAir" and "China Southern" in all fora on FT. The result may surprise you:

1. Using "RyanAir" as key word, I found 498 threads. When requesting "Show Results as Posts", there are currently 493 posts on FT that contain "RyanAir." (A bit odd since post number shouldn't be smaller than thread number but what can I say. It's FT Search. )

2. With key words of "China Southern", I found 497 FT threads. When using "Show Results as Posts", more than 500 posts mentioned "China Southern" on FT. Since FT search results cap at 500 hits, we don't know the actual number of posts for China Southern on FT. It could be 1000, 5000, or even 10K.

Not to mention China Southern (CZ) a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance.

To sum up:
Post Count: RyanAir (=493) vs. China Southern (>>500)
Thread Count: RyanAir (=498) vs. China Southern (=497)

So, what do these numbers tell us? It shows demand on FT, to say at least.

I am not necessarily against new forum for a deserving airline (or destination). I just think the supporters/advocates should do a better job to provide convincing data or sounder arguments that will cater to the core mission of FT. I would think that's the merits in the proposals that could win more support from TBers.

Ex Amex Card

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far ^

The idea of a Wiki was raised and if that was a success then a forum to follow. I like wikis but to my thinking, this is the opposite of how wikis are created. You can't ask questions on a wiki - firstly you have a discussion forum and then knowledgeable people contribute to FAQs/Stickies and then eventually a Wiki can be created.

Yes, there are other forums on the internet for RY/EZ. Does that mean that FlyerTalk should not have a forum too? It seems like a strange logic to me. Surely there is room for a high quality forum like Flyertalk to get in on the discussion?

A few people have pointed out that RY/EZ don't have a frequent flier program, but as I pointed out in my opening post - these forums are as much about the discussion of the airline as anything else.

A few people have commented that there is already a budget travel forum and there isn't much discussion of RY/EZ there. Just because people fly on LCCs doesn't mean they are budget travellers. A lot of people use LCCs for business or leisure because they fly to convienient airports or perhaps (shock horror) because they are a whole lot cheaper and just as good as the competition.

A lot of the posts which oppose the new forums sound a bit condescending to be blunt, a kind of "if you want to talk about THAT sort of flying then turn right and go all the way to the back of the plane and talk about it down there". I kind of expected a bit of that though, I'm not too proud to say that I ride in the cheap seats - at 5 Euros all inclusive for a flight I'll ride in the jump seat if I have to.

As has been pointed out, more than 100,000,000 passengers per year fly Ryanair and easyJet. That's a lot of potential growth for Flyertalk. From a purely business point of view, it would cost very little to create the forums and increase your google rank - I can't see how it would do any harm. The LCC business model is growing fast, FT needs to move with the times.

"If you build it, they will come".

judolphin

Agreed 100% but was trying my best to be diplomatic. As great as FT is, this is the part of FT I cannot stand -- the sense of superiority over those who dare to be smart with their money.

There is no other legitimate reason to exclude major LCCs from FT.

Agreed. TB would be making a huge mistake if they didn't at least try this.

Again, with all due respect I don't think it's a legit comparison. China Southern is part of SkyTeam. This means it's discussed on the SkyTeam board, the DL board, the old NW board, the AF/KL board, the old CO board before they went *A... there is no such outlet currently for EZ/RA. We're talking about making one so they will also have >>500 threads.

Ex Amex Card

I don't know how scientific it is but I tried a search on Google search for FT posts and got these results:

China Southern 553 results.

Ryanair 3,140 results.

easyJet 13,100 results.

judolphin

Great find. I'd never have guessed this. That's astounding considering China Southern is in SkyTeam. You'd think people would have mentioned it in passing on the SkyTeam/SkyTeam airlines' boards by accident more often than the subjects of this thread. The fact it's apparently outnumbered six to 25 times, should say something.

NickB

As a user of FT, I don't give too hoots about the FT 'brand'. To me, this is an issue for IB not for FT users.
You have put forward as an argument that EZY, etc.. is just like any other airline. What I was doing was refuting that argument. Most European LCCs are NOT like legacy airlines and other full service carriers, something which is far less true of US LCCs. For instance, unlike full service carriers (and most US LCCs), most European LCCs (including Easyjet and Ryanair) are strictly point-to-point carriers, they do not interline, they have very different policies in case or irrops and, crucially for the current discussion they do not have an FFP. This is not true of all Euroepan LCCs. Air Berlin, for instance, although it is generally regarded as an LCC, has an FFP and is generally much closer to full service carriers than Easyjet or Ryanair. If there was a request for an Air Berlin forum, it seems to me that it would be an easier one to accommodate provided the traffic justified it (which is not the case, imo, at this stage).

Easyjet, however, is a different kettle of fish. I have nothing against Easyjet per se. In fact, I do fly Easyjet and am generally very happy with them. The question is not there.

A proof that Easyjet (or FR for that matter) is not just like any other airline on FT is that you could not create an Easyjet forum in the airlines programs section of FT since they do not have a program. You would have to create it under Travel and Dining (and, truth be told, if we were to go in that direction, a sub-forum of budget travel would seem to me the most obvious place).

I would not have an absolute categorical objection of principle to the creation of an Easyjet or Ryanair forum per se. But, since they do not have an FFP, they are "non-core" and, as such, subject to a somewhat higher threshold of justification than core forums similar to other non-core fora.

For now, it seems to me that budget travel fills the function of repository of discussions on Ryanair and Easyjet pretty well. It also seems to me that there is sufficient overlap in discussions of relevance to several LCCs for it to be a loss to fragment those discussions in separate fora rather than keeping them together in one common forum. It may well be that we end up in a situation where FR or EZY or any other airline outgrows BT. But we are not there yet, imo.

The only argument which, in my eyes, has a little bit more weight is the visibility issue (it would not occur to me to post issues relating to LCCs in budget travel) but that can be easily solved by slightly tweaking the name of the forum.

tcook052

The lack of FFP is the only legitimate reason this poster requires to say no to the creation of individual Ryan Air and Easyjet FT forums. FT's core purpose is stated well right on the home web page:

FlyerTalk is an interactive community that provides up-to-date information on travel-related loyalty reward programs.

N830MH

Hmmm. I think its good answer the specific questions for U2 & FR, too. Let's the speculating about this one. I think it would be very good comments for creating new forums is sound good logical choice. However, it's up to Talkboard will have to made decision to be in negotiate deal from Talkboards is subject to voting to start more new fourms on Miles & Points thread. Actually, I think it would be good idea to proposed to create new U2 & FR forums is approval from Talkboard will put on the vote to says Yes to me.

Obviously, I think it will may to be in negotiate deal from our members to have more specifically for me is context to create new thread. This is better way to keep out of Budge Travel forums is not necessary. Final, it will have to decide own facts will awaited for finalized approval. It will be motion passed to startup new thread is perfect opportunities lots of FlyerTalk members will be great additions to get new FR & U2 fourms. It will be great appreciate it for our contributions to start new forums sometimes in the future.

tuff

I’m a relatively new member and although read a lot of the threads am not a major contributor. Yet. However, I do feel a lot of well-established members have not moved with the times. I don’t think I’ve looked at the home page to understand the original purpose of the site since I joined. The clue is in the title: it is “flyertalk” not “frequent flyer programme talk”. If the threads were strictly about just FFPs the great range of threads would not be allowed (this morning I have already read about macaroni cheese pies at GLA and the BA strike – neither of these are strictly related to FFPs but do form part of the whole flying experience which is what I want to read about).

I have several gold cards from various FFPs but also fly easyJet and want to easily find threads about LCCs as well. To my mind easyJet and Ryanair are different beasts and deserve their own fora.

Websites develop and change. Their members should too.

Roger

Judolphin and Ex Amex Card have stolen my thunder with their excellent posts.

The objection some have is that FR and EZ do not have a FFP along the same lines as legacy carriers and we don't need an information forum. That logic doesn't apply to these current forums:

• AF Frequence Plus - which doesn't exist
• KLM Flying Dutchman - which doesn't exist
• Swiss International Airlines - which is not a FFP

I'm not suggesting that any of these should be removed, just that they are not current FFPs and have relevance only as discussions on the airlines concerned.

Then there are:

• NW Worldperks (Discontinued Program) which is, er, a discontinued program
• America West (Discontinued Program) (ditto)
• USAirways Dividend Miles (pre FlightFund merger)

Given the interest referenced previously, it is difficult to see FR and EZ excluded in favour of these redundant ex-programs.

JOUY31

Well, as for the discussion of opening other forums in the past, it would be interesting to see how many threads and posts focused on RyanAir and EasyJet there has been over the last year. And I am not counting the threads where the mention of any of these two carriers has been incidental, such as the traditional bashing posts in the BA forum .

I would support the systematic move of the threads focused on these two carriers to the Budget Travel forum, as a first step, so that we can have a more precise understanding of the trends. It would have two benefits IMHO:
- having a clearer view of the number of threads / day that are really focused on these carriers
- see whether or when they represent a significant portion of the threads in that forum, which would warrant the creation of new forums, just as the Accor forum was created when the Accor focused threads represented more than 50% of the threads in the Other hotels forum.

BTW, the forums mentioned by Roger are sub-forums created for the purpose of managing the merger and co-existence of different communities or airlines within an airline group. They are not on the same level as, for instance, the Delta Skymiles forum.