Will the JMC revolution be mission impossible?

Comment

Will the JMC revolution be mission impossible?

As a guest at one of JMC’s agent panels (see pages 4 and 5) you come to the conclusion that the operator has given itself an impossible task.

First of all, JMC deserves considerable credit for staging these panels with retailers. Which other firms go to such effort to get the views of the people at the sharp end?

But JMC’s problem is that it wants to be a cut above its rivals, while at the same time competing in the mass market because it has 28 aircraft to fill.

JMC cannot afford to charge higher prices than its rivals because in a competitive market, its share will drop like a stone and those aircraft will be empty. So any changes are small because big improvements cost so much that unless you pass that on to customers, you’re not going to make any money.

Agents want JMC to scrap ticket-on-departure charges or at least charge a fully inclusive price to the consumer. But the marketeers know that scrapping charges would cost money and fully inclusive prices would make the operator appear uncompetitive. So agents have to tell customers about ticket-on-departure charges when they are already committed to the booking and this just annoys them.

Of course, minor improvements are better than none at all. It’s just that everyone was told there would be a revolution.

Jeremy Skidmore – editor