Error 601

As I said, Air Canada faced with how to make a go of routes that were not viable at their mainline costs made a number of different choices and Rouge appears to be incredibly successful and Swoop doesn't appear to have the same potential because of the self-imposed limits WestJet imposed on Swoop.

There are a lot more places that Air Canada can deploy Rouge than WestJet can deploy Swoop.

What you have convinced me of is that Swoop is incredibly fragile and can only exist in a perfect equilibrium that will be difficult maintain between internal and external cost pressures. Like the idea that the WestJet brand really doesn't have any inherent value relative to the revenue opportunities from hostile interactions with customers it just leaves me agape. If I worked for WestJet at the present time I think the anxiety would keep me up at night.

aerobod

Ryanair interpreted "a reasonable period of time" to be 6 days due to a weather related delay, within the EU261 rules: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breaki...er-961392.html

A law with specific rules defining "reasonable period" in many circumstances would be worthwhile, but how much is a passenger willing to pay to have government enforced standards of IROP recovery? In 2010 when EU261 was a bit less prescriptive than it is now, Ryanair says EU261 cost them €100m on revenue of €3,000m, so just over 3% then. Now I expect that has risen to about 5% due to the stricter rules, further tightening to move passengers on other airlines in say 48 hours would likely push that up a bit more. 6% increase in ticket prices across the board would seem like the cost to passengers to provide EU261 recovery within 48 hours for the 2% or so of flight cancellations or disruptions beyond 3 hours that a typical airline has to deal with.

aerobod

You are applying your experience with airlines in general to a ULCC model that I'm not sure you understand. Swoop is modelled quite closely on Ryanair and Jetstar. Ryanair by percentage margin is always at or near the top of any airline fiscal performance ranking, demonstrating the success of a pure ULCC model. It is all about the attention to detail in driving cost down that doesn't exist to the same level in other airline models.

stevendorechester

But if they are putting passengers up in a hotel for six days as required by EU laws wouldn' t it be cheaper for them to work out an arrangement for another airline to accept their tickets, on a space available basis perhaps so that they don' t pay the full retail price? It' s a very competitive industry so I don' t think LCC's would raise their fares too much if it made them noncompetitive with "mainline" airlines. I' ve taken a couple of intra-Europe flights in the last five years on legacy carriers and paid between 35 and 50 Euros, and was re-route on another airline once despite paying such a low fare. There is some truth that EU laws have caused an increase in fares, for business travelers perhaps but I' ve found the flights I take with Europe on legacy airlines to be very reasonable and marginally more expensive than LCC's. I doubt that fare would rise 6% across the board as a delays of more than 48 hours are extremely rare. If it turns out that it does increase fares that much then the authorities could exempt ATC and weather delays in this case. I would personally rather see service recovery imposed on airlines rather than cash compensation during delays, which has directly resulted in higher fares across the board.

aerobod

A 6% increase would be for implementation of EU261 equivalent rules in Canada combined with 48 hours as a definition for "reasonable time" (assuming severe delays such as for hurricanes and volcanic eruptions would be outside a 48 hour rule). This information would be as applied to a ULCC such as Swoop and Flair and would apply to the average full travel cost besides taxes and fees, not just the base fare. In terms of Ryanair, their current average ticket cost is €55 per segment with an Average stage length of around 1550km, leading to a revenue of €0.0355 per kilometre, or CAD$0.0834 per mile of which about €3.30 of that cost would be for EU261 protection. Swoop flights of around 1000 miles (for example Hamilton to Orlando) with the Swoop revenue around $0.10 per mile (0.07 CASM, 0.02 fuel, 0.01 profit) would be about $100 before taxes and fees (typically $70 or so for that segment) without EU261 levels of protection or $106 or so with EU261 levels of protection and a 48-hour maximum recovery objective.

Error 601

I understand it conceptually, I don't understand how it is implemented in Canada at any significant scale. A Swoop flight out of YEG still has $50 to $100 in taxes and fees and It isn't as though Swoop can tell YEG that they need lower fees or we're moving to the Edmonton Flying Club, Ryanair can credibly do that.

If realizing cost discipline requires chipping around the edges till you reach a magic number that seems like an incredibly fragile situation to me.

aerobod

One reason ULCCs can't reach the CASM in Canada that can be reached in Europe is the lack of cheap secondary airports near to primary ones, another is the the cost or aircraft deicing in the winter (about USD$3,000 for a full de-ice on a 737). "Chipping" to a very specific "magic" CASM number is essential for all airlines, those that don't do it are out of business soon. The complexities of revenue management and how to achieve the target number are where a lot of IT cycles are spent in analytics. It is even more important for ULCCs, as the fixed costs for aircraft leases, airports, maintenance, etc have to be planned 5 to 10 years in advance and the variable cost in the CASM has to be even more tightly managed due to the fixed costs taking up a much larger proportion than for legacy or LCC airlines.

Fiordland

I have to say I like most Canadians have no idea what a ULCC means. WestJet (through Swoop) is doing a poor job in educating us. I have been traveling to Europe on business or pleasure for over two decades averaging between 1-6 transatlantic flights a year and I have never had Ryanair show up as an option with a travel agent or a connection on Air Canada, Delta, Lufthansa or British Airways. I don't think Ryanair gets a lot of Canadians as customers.

Swoop tariff and their website (https://www.flyswoop.com/flight-interruptions/) basically say for an uncontrollable delay state that if an appropriate option is not available on Swoop they will book onto a partner airline. In practice at the airport their people appear to not be able to do this. For a delay in their control they will book onto a non-partner airline.

If they were actually implementing this ULCC model they should be upfront. If your flight is cancelled you may stranded until the next fleet and your will get on that only if there is space. So plan on being standard a few weeks

Error 601

So pick an adjective to describe that situation.

aerobod

Focused.

GrayAnderson

I'm just wondering, but how did Swoop get its plane back to Canada? Or was the plane just left in situ for a week?

Sopwith

"Reasonable" is a word invented by lawyers for the express purpose of creating more wealth for more lawyers.

tracon

Generally ULCCs don't interline with other carriers. Especially legacy airlines.
That is starting to change though.

I do know Canadians who have flown Ryanair and Easyjet. Never as a connection before or after their ocean crossing.
Always mid trip trying to get from one part of Europe to another.

Error 601

There are definitely people making the connection from WS1 to EasyJet and Vueling, I see it every single time.

Fiordland

In the case of Swoop website they talk about how they rebook onto partner airlines. One would expect their parent company is a partner airline, however we are told the computer systems were designed on purpose to not permit that to happen. So which other airlines fall into this "partner" category mentioned on the website.