評論
打印
Low-cost airlines
廉價航空
Long-haul sally
長途旅行
More carriers try to go the distance with no frills
越來越多的航空公司致力于使旅途沒有多余服務
Perhaps JetBlue believes that the sky is darkest before dawn. On August 11th America’s sixth-biggest airline, known for its no-frills domestic services, launched its first transatlantic flights, between New York and London. The timing seems plucky. America has yet to follow European countries in lifting tough pandemic-era cross-border travel restrictions. Industry insiders think that long-haul travel will be the last sort to rebound. And low-cost intercontinental travel has historically been a tough business. Can JetBlue crack it?
或許捷藍航空認為黎明前的天空是最黑暗的。8月11日，這家以提供廉價國內航空服務而聞名的美國第六大航空公司，首次開通了往返于紐約和倫敦之間的跨大西洋航班。選擇這個時機似乎很大膽。美國還沒有像歐洲國家一樣取消疫情時期嚴格的跨境旅行限制。業內人士認為，長途旅行將是最后一種回升方式。從歷史上看，廉價洲際旅行一直是一項艱難的業務。捷藍航空能破解這個難題嗎?
The flight path of failure can be tracked from Freddie Laker’s Skytrain in the 1970s, via People Express, Tower Air and Air Berlin, to the more recent hard landings for Denmark’s Primera Air in 2018 and Iceland’s WOW in 2019. Norwegian Air Shuttle, which had captured a third of the worldwide low-cost-long-haul market, gave up on it in January, a victim of reckless expansion as much as of covid-19. Even survivors have little to shout about. Malaysia’s AirAsia X has made an annual pre-tax profit only twice since it went public in 2013.
航空業的失敗路線可以追溯到20世紀70年代弗雷迪·萊克的“輕軌”，中間歷經美國人民捷運、寶塔航空和柏林航空，到更近期的2018年破產的丹麥派美拉航空，和2019年破產的冰島沃奧航空。曾占據世界廉價長途航空市場三分之一的挪威穿梭航空公司在今年1月放棄了這一市場，成為新冠疫情和盲目擴張的犧牲品。即便幸存下來也沒什么可高興的。馬來西亞的亞航X自2013年上市以來，只有兩次實現了年度稅前利潤。
Budget airlines have transformed short-haul flying by running simple point-to-point operations that eschew the hassle of connecting passengers across a complex network. They keep aeroplanes in the air for longer each day than full-service rivals do, fly from less popular airports at ungodly hours when charges are lower, cram punters into minimal legroom, charge extra for every tiny comfort and keep labour costs down by employing fewer and cheaper staff.
廉價航空公司通過運行簡單的點對點操作，避免了通過復雜網絡連接乘客的麻煩，從而改變了短途飛行。與提供全方位服務的競爭對手相比，他們每天讓飛機在空中飛行的時間更長，于凌晨從不太繁忙的機場出發（因為這種時候收費較低），把顧客塞進腿都伸不開的狹小空間里，每一個小小的讓顧客感到舒適的服務都要收取額外費用，并通過雇傭更少和更便宜的員工來壓低勞動力成本。
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