A SECOND European
LCC, Air France’s Joon,
has announced that it
will launch long-haul flights
into Africa. The first was
Lufthansa’s Eurowings.
Legacy carriers that saw
their regional business
decimated by low-cost
carriers like Europe’s easyJet
and Ryanair are facing up to
the LCC threat to their longhaul
routes.
The most notable longhaul
success story has
been Norwegian Air, which
is one of the world’s fastest
growing airlines and has
just been given rights by
the US government to start
transatlantic flights out of
the UK. Using fuel-efficient
aircraft and with a culture of
tight cost controls, its share
price jumped almost 7% on
the news.
BA’s parent, IAG, has
started Level out of Spain
in its bid to contest the LCC
long-haul market starting with
North and South America.
In August, Eurowings
announced that it would
launch flights from
Cologne to Cape Town on
November 5. Then, last
week, Joon announced
that it would launch flights
from Paris to Seychelles in
summer 2018.
A spokesperson for
Eurowings told TNW that
while the carrier might be
the first LCC to launch these
flights, they were sure others
would follow. They said the
popularity of Cape Town in
particular was likely to drive
more European LCCs to
launch flights to SA.
The spokesperson went
on to explain that, like LCC
travellers in Europe, those
in SA are well educated as
to the offerings of LCCs
and have an expectation
of high quality, service and
experience despite the low
cost.
For this reason, the factor
of excellent value will become
increasingly important for
LCCs that launch long-haul
flights into Africa.
