Come Fly With Me

Dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna! Sorry for writing that late!

This time I have listened to the podcast called: “Come Fly With Me”. This podcast deals with the issue of both building relationships (which we studied during the previous lesson) and international marketing. Here is the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00b5qjn

                While listening the first time I understood about 90% of the record. It wasn`t so hard to understand what the speakers were talking about. As this podcast concerns the matter of competition on the air traffic market, the speakers used some new words connected with this field, namely: low-cost carrier (or  low-cost airline, legacy carrier (or legacy airline) and long-haul airline. It was interesting to get to know this terminology. During the second listening I understood mostly the whole record.

            This podcast comprises 2 interviews with British Airways CEO and AirAsia X CEO . Nowadays budget airlines (such as AirAsia X,  Ryanair) have been piling up profits, that’s why the old so called legacy airlines (such as BA, Air France)  have plunged into loss. Legacy airlines are simply unable to deal with a low-cost challenge of low-cost airlines. Although the economy is not looking too good now and aviation is suffering, budget airlines keep on expanding their markets. For example, AirAsia X (a long-haul low-cost airline flying the world’s longest low-cost service from Kuala Lumpur to London) carried over a million of passengers in 2009 and hopes to double this rate in 2010. Besides, AirAsia X makes a good profit, which is difficult for an airline that has been working only 3 years. AirAsia X CEO Azran Osmar Rani says the key to their success is that they can optimize the way they use their planes and can find an ideal time for their passengers. So he stresses the importance of building relationships with the passengers to understand what the best time for making a flight is. British Airways CEO says that this is an incredibly competitive industry. Legacy airlines have to do something with this low-cost challenge of low-cost airlines. And British Airways CEO sees consolidation as a part of solution to the structural problems. Some of the legacy costs can’t be changed, e.g. pension costs. But a lot of their costs are in control. And he thinks that the challenge for airline management is to exercise as much control over those costs as possible. But they shouldn’t forget about building relationships with their  passengers.

            As regards me, I think that the nowadays consumer has become more educated and it is natural that low-cost airlines become more and more popular.