How to attract business travellers: what they like and don’t like about low cost airlines

It will come as no surprise that cost is the major reason why business travellers book low cost airlines, but when these calculations are made, it’s not just about the ticket price.

I recently asked business travellers on Linkedin what the benefits and downsides are of travelling on low cost airlines. Here are some of their comments:

“You can save costs for a project, depending on how many flights you have in your team. Depending on your budget you can prefer to send three experts flying in a low cost airline than one flying in a high cost airline. But you can get late for meetings if the low cost airline does not support other ways to face a delay in a flight. If it’s not that confortable, you will have tired employees after a long flight without resting properly.”

“The only benefit I can think of is cost. However, calculating the cost may not be as simple as comparing the nett cost of the ticket. Large corporations may strike a deal with either corporate travel agent or the airline for corporate rate and services. This might be consolidated billing that reduces not only the ticket cost, but also money (credit term) and payment processing cost.
Downsides: Comfort is one. Schedule is somewhat less predictable. Employee morale is another. All of these things can actually end up being cost as well.”

Whilst these comments don’t offer new insights – obviously low costs know their downsides – what they demonstrate is the extent of the gulf between what some airlines deliver and the perception of what low cost airlines in general deliver. For example, airlines such as Vueling and Easyjet have successfully attracted the business traveller and would argue some of these downsides aren’t applicable.

Alex Cruz, CEO of Vueling, says it has developed a product which is very very similar to that of the traditional carriers but is delivered with a cost structure of the low-cost carriers.

He said: “We have the flexibility to play with price if we want in order to offer very low fares,but we also have the flexibility to attract business passengers in the same plane, by offering access to the products and the types of amenities that business passengers want.”

What do you think? How far do airlines still have to go in attracting the business traveller?