Things in the Sky

Last week TripAdvisor released the results of its annual travel survey, and I found a couple of the results, at least when it comes to airline-related items, very interesting. (You can see some of my thoughts on the airport side of things on my About Airport Parking blog.)

One big issue with the survey is that TripAdvisor didn’t release anything about the demographics of those who took the survey. If the majority of the respondents were very frequent travelers, then airlines looking at these results should probably pay attention. But, if most of the survey takers fly maybe once a year, then not so much. And of course, there’s always a difference between what people say they will do and what they actually do. I.e. they say they might prefer an airline with a good in-flight entertainment product but end up going with the carrier that has the cheapest price or most convenient schedule. But, let’s take a look.

First, the survey found that 25% of travelers found legroom to be one of their least favorite things about traveling. So that’s good for airline’s like JetBlue, United, Frontier, and Midwest because they all offer economy seating with more legroom for an additional fee. And now Continental’s announcement that they will start selling exit row seating makes even more sense.

Next up is baggage fees, and none of us should be shocked that travelers aren’t exactly fans. That’s certainly good for Southwest (two free bags) and JetBlue (one free bag). Basically, the debate about bag fees continues. The airlines that charge them have fallen in love with the ancillary revenue they provide, while Southwest has been thinking of late that its “Bags Fly Free” campaign is winning new customers, though I think it’s fair to say that’s more attractive to non-frequent leisure travelers than the business travelers Southwest has been trying to get (I think that group cares more about the lack of a change fee at Southwest).

There were a couple of interesting statistics when it comes to inflight Wi-Fi, especially because we can only guess about how popular and profitable it’s been. 30% of respondents said they would pick one airline over another due to Wi-Fi, so that’s good news for Virgin America and AirTran, who have their entire fleets equipped with Gogo. But then 61% of all respondents aid they aren’t interested in paying for inflight Wi-Fi, which makes me wonder what usage rates have been.

Anyway, those are the numbers I found the most interesting.