Over the years, the travel industry has made money from anything other than selling holidays.
In the days of high interest rates, money was made by holding onto mountains of cash for as long as possible. Some companies literally didn’t make any money on tour operating and just relied on high interest rates in order to show a profit. Then there were the fuel surcharges. Many a household name made a neat killing until the Consumers’ Association latched onto what was going on and put a stop to it.
The strong pound over the last three years has enabled many companies to show inflated profits – therefore making themselves more attractive to the likes of Airtours and Thomson.
Selling high-priced insurance linked to discounts made Lunn Poly a force to be reckoned with. The habit was snapped up by many others until the Monopolies and Mergers Commission stopped this rather unsavoury practice.
The greed of some operators in imposing 100% cancellation charges for stopping a holiday well before departure has finally attracted the attention of the CA. I have no doubt the image of our industry will once more be dragged through the mud and, in the end, we will have standard cancellation charge levels imposed on us.
Well done those whose greed is about to put an end to this little earner too! I’ve never thought much of flexible pricing either. It is distasteful and smacks of sharp practice. But what should one expect from an industry which has always had a barrow-boy mentality.
However, the practice that really annoys me is that of charter airlines charging for the privilege of sitting together. I can’t remember who thought of it first. Anyway, everyone followed very quickly.
I’ve boarded a great many aircraft since I’ve been in travel, many times with a wife and four children. I’ve never pre-booked seats but just cannot remember ever not being able to sit with whoever I was travelling with. It’s £5 into the back pocket, thank you very much.
In fact, these stupid policies have created a situation where so many seats are now being pre-allocated that other passengers really do have a problem sitting next to each other. How scandalous to have to pay to sit next to your partner on a cramped charter aircraft.
But what really takes the biscuit is the £30 charge for sitting next to the emergency exit. Of course, those who want to are usually elderly or have walking difficulties and they are not allowed to sit there in the first place.
Then we have to sort out the mess when our clients get on the aircraft and find they have not been allocated the seats they requested. Just think of what the charter airlines are raking in at £5 plus extra on a seat. Even if only 25% of the passengers on each flight elect to pre-book their seats, that’s still a substantial but undeserved killing.
Then you have those that did not pre-book feeling they have been treated like second-class citizens.
We never miss an opportunity to tell our customers how we feel about the whole seat pre-allocation system. But nothing will change until the public realise they are paying for something which they used to get free.