Consumers are not driven purely by price when choosing an airline during the recession, according to market research company TNS.
In a Travel Weekly survey of more than 2,035 consumers, half of the respondents said they would normally choose an airline that offered the cheapest price, but a quarter disagreed with this statement.
Although easyJet and Ryanair dominated the market, a third of those questioned insisted that they would use a low-cost airline only if there was no other option.
A total of 40% of respondents said they take an airline’s safety record into account, and 60% of people preferred to fly with airlines that provided an allocated seat. About 30% of travellers also insisted that free food and drink on short-haul flights was important – a percentage that rose among travellers under 35 years old.
TNS head of travel and tourism Tom Costley said: “While continuing to be an important factor, the price of a flight is not the be-all and end-all.