Cheap Flying Is Not Dead. It Just Moved to Europe
For many years America took great pride in the idea that everything could be made bigger, faster and cheaper at the same time. It was therefore only natural that someone eventually decided to sell air travel in the same manner one sells discount socks. Spirit Airlines became the prophet of this religion. Tickets were advertised at prices so low that a man suspected there must be some misunderstanding, and usually there was. By the time one paid for luggage, a seat, a cup of water and perhaps the right to continue breathing, the miracle had become less miraculous.
The end of Spirit has exposed an awkward truth. America's low-cost carriers spent years competing against giants like Delta and United, which possess loyalty programs, credit cards and enough scale to turn inconvenience into a science. Passengers themselves have changed their habits. Many discovered that they preferred reliability to adventure and a peaceful seat to the privilege of participating in an airline's financial experiment. It is difficult to sell misery as economy forever.
Geography has joined the conspiracy. Europe was blessed with countries packed together like books on a shelf, while America stretches itself across a continent. Low-cost carriers earn money when aircraft spend more time flying and less time wandering across half the globe. A three-hour hop across Europe can pass through several nations. In America, three hours merely convinces one that Texas is larger than expected. Fuel costs, pilot salaries and endless distances have turned the arithmetic against companies that built their business upon selling tickets for less than the cost of dinner.
The result is almost comic. Spirit disappeared, Southwest abandoned traditions once thought sacred, JetBlue retreated from markets, and smaller carriers continue searching for neglected airports in places the major airlines regard with the affection usually reserved for distant cousins. Americans are discovering that the "Golden Age of Travel" may simply mean paying more money for fewer choices. Progress, it seems, occasionally walks in circles.
Across the Atlantic, however, matters look rather different. Europe remains perhaps the most hospitable landscape ever invented for the low-cost model. Cities lie close together, aircraft can perform rapid turnarounds, and millions of passengers still prefer practicality over unnecessary luxury. The result is that carriers such as Wizz Air, easyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle continue proving that low fares and respectable profits need not be enemies.
Wizz Air has spent years behaving like an engineer rather than a philosopher. While others hold conferences explaining why things are difficult, Wizz quietly adds aircraft, opens routes and carries millions of passengers who would rather spend money on their holiday than on reaching it. Temporary engine issues and geopolitical storms have done little to alter the simple fact that one of Europe's youngest fleets remains among its most efficient.
EasyJet, meanwhile, has mastered a talent that deserves admiration. It sells affordable tickets without treating passengers as though they were being smuggled across the border in potato sacks. Even with higher fuel costs and temporary losses, the company continues benefiting from strong demand and a network that connects Europe's great cities with the regularity of a Swiss watch. Experience, it appears, still has commercial value.
Norwegian Air Shuttle deserves praise for surviving difficulties that would have persuaded weaker men to take up farming. After restructuring and years of turbulence, the airline returned leaner and wiser. Scandinavians, who have long considered unnecessary drama an unfortunate habit of foreigners, rewarded the company with loyalty and rising traffic. One suspects there are lessons there for many executives.
The European low-cost model itself possesses an elegance absent elsewhere. A traveler may breakfast in Warsaw, have lunch in Milan and complain about hotel prices in Barcelona before evening. Distances are shorter, aircraft utilization is higher and customers understand perfectly well that a three-hour flight does not require silk curtains and crystal chandeliers. Efficiency has become a virtue rather than an apology.
For all the gloomy predictions, Europe's budget airlines continue demonstrating that low-cost aviation is not a failed idea but merely one that requires the proper geography, discipline and management. The funeral of Spirit Airlines says less about the death of the model than about the dangers of confusing cheap tickets with good business. Europe, with Wizz Air, easyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle, continues to remind the world that thrift and common sense are still capable of flying together at thirty thousand feet.
Andrievskii Verdict
The obituary for Spirit Airlines should not be mistaken for the obituary of low-cost aviation. It merely demonstrates that selling cheap seats without sufficient scale, favorable geography and operational discipline eventually resembles opening a lemonade stand in the middle of the Sahara and blaming the sun for poor sales.
Europe remains the natural kingdom of budget carriers. Wizz Air, easyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle operate in a geography that rewards efficiency rather than punishes it. Their markets are dense, routes are shorter and millions of passengers still prefer spending money on destinations instead of donating it to premium cabins and loyalty schemes.
The lesson is simple. The American low-cost model appears to be running out of runway. The European one, despite temporary headwinds, still looks very much like a business rather than a historical exhibit. Perhaps cheap flying is not disappearing after all. It has merely emigrated to Europe, where geography still cooperates and accountants have not entirely lost their minds.
Aleksei Andrievskii | Advisory Board Member, Bendura Bank AG | Liechtenstein