Your views

Winter Flights – A Reason
Dear Sir,
Low cost schedule airlines are like supermarkets, they pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap. They want the maximum returns for the minimum outlays which, although the margins may be small, when related to the high pile, the end profit can be substantial.
Neither are charities, they are in business to make big profits for the share holders. However, in the case of supermarkets, if customers choose not to buy from the pile, they simply remove the product from the shelves; but if the airline customers do not buy the seats, the airline must still operate the scheduled services as advertised (The Civil Aviation Authority, who issue the Operating Licence to the particular airline, insist on this condition otherwise the licence can be withdrawn).
In the case of airlines it is all about making the maximum use of recourses, aircraft, flight crews, ground staff and engineers. To operate, say, four aircraft from a particular airport with each of the aircraft making two or three return flights per day, is good business provided each flight carries about 120 passengers on a 150 seat aircraft (this represents an 80% load factor). The four aircraft, the flight crews, the ground staff and the engineers are all based at that airport which makes for a compact and easily managed operation.
For an airline to operate a very much reduced service from another airport, say once per week from one located in Scotland, would require the propositioning of an aircraft; requiring an extra empty return flight and the provision of two flight crews instead of the usual one (Civil Aviation Authority Flight Time Limitations would not allow a single crew to be on duty for some twelve hours whilst operating a four sector day).
The airline would also require expensive outsourced ground and engineering staff. An estimate for such an operation would be £45,000 rather than the normal £20,000 when operated under normal circumstances. Simple arithmetic shows the average fare would need to be increased by 250% to make such an operation viable. Further, it is not unreasonable to assume that the load factor during the winter period would be less than the 80% expected during summer, thus incurring a further increase in fares.
Aircraft scheduled maintenance and staff holidays, together with flights to ski destination mainly take place in winter thus reducing the number of services available.
It is worth noting that some ten years ago, British Airway, Iberia and British Midland operated flights to London Heathrow and Gatwick which included a 23 kgs hold baggage allowance, more than one cabin bag, free meals or snacks and free seat booking. These flights were expensive when related to  the present charges of today’s low cost operators and consequently customers, almost en mass, moved to the low cost airlines. In the end, you get what you pay for and what you vote for.
A partial solution to this problem might be for the low cost operators to arrange their timetables and booking procedures so that UK airports, which are not directly connected to the sun destinations in winter, could be linked to flights from other UK airports which serve sun destinations in winter such as Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and London.
This procedure might include through hold baggage at one charge and on-line boarding passes for both flights. Should a particular airline not have the necessary connections, it would seem relatively easy, and quite normal for larger airlines, to have an association with other airlines to offer connections either in the UK or at other European airports. As an example flights to Palma from the UK could have associations with either Veuling and/or Air Europe for flights connecting through Alicante, Barcelona or Madrid.
Tom Leeming
Puerto Portals