easyJet lands on the GDS runway
Slowly but surely the low cost carriers are moving over towards GDS, which for decades has been exclusively for the traditional airlines. This is the start of a shake-up that will have great consequences for all involved. The low cost carriers are on the hunt for business travellers, but will the established players just let them in? And can the challengers deliver the quality that business travellers have come to expect?
easyJet, one of the largest and most dynamic low cost carriers, is one of the challengers that is now establishing itself in Amadeus GDS. We interviewed Jerry Dunn, Head of Distribution at easyJet, to get a better view of their plans and to see how they view the future. Already today about one in five easyJet customers travel for business purposes. According to Jerry Dunn, easyJet’s future plan is to attract an even larger proportion of passengers from the large attractive business segment.
“We estimate with about 20 per cent of our passengers being business travellers, but are setting our sights on increasing that proportion even further. easyJet was originally founded as a low cost tourist airline to popular destinations, but in pace with our growth we have also attracted more and more business travellers. We know we can get more travellers from business travel agents, which is the reason behind some of our recent initiatives.”
Does this entail radical changes in your distribution strategy?
“Our primary distribution channel, or our Jewel in the Crown if you prefer, is still our www.easyJet.com website. But now we have turned to GDS and other third party distribution solutions as one way of focusing on the business travel sector.”
How will this impact your business?
“We’ll have no problem filling our planes, our capacity utilisation of recent months has been at 83.5 per cent, but business travellers pay more for their tickets because they book a lot closer to the journey. They will therefore give us larger profit margins and improve our average revenue per seat.”
Are you planning incentives to travel agents for selling your tickets?
“No, that would be against our principles. We are at first hand an airline that sells tickets directly to travellers. This has been a very successful model so we see no need to stimulate travel agents to sale our tickets. We know there is a demand for our products, among business travellers as well as tourists. The point-of-sale fee we charge for a booking compensates for the loss of significant revenues from partners we would otherwise get through our website bookings. It should also compensate for the cost of joining the GDS.”
Today easyJet has only one Scandinavian destination and that is Copenhagen. What are your expansion plans for Scandinavia?
“We are always looking at different ways of expanding on to new markets and our overall aim is a 15 per cent annual growth rate, but we have no specific plans for Scandinavia at present. But naturally, should a good location arise in Scandinavia I am sure we would evaluate it, but I know of no such plans at the present time.”
Facts, easyJet
- 40 million passengers flew with easyJet in 2007
- Founded by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 1995
- The Head Office is housed in Hangar 89 at Luton Airport
- easyJet is a pronounced low cost airline
- easyJet has no flights outside of Europe
Photo: Jerry Dunn
Jerry Dunn, Head of Distribution at easyJet, is looking to charm business travellers.
