The majority of low cost airlines make passengers pay for water – and it’s a small bottle of water at that. We asked our viewers last month what your thoughts were on the issue of free water on all flights with some interesting results.
Over half of the respondants (55%) thought that water should be provided free on all low cost carriers whilst 9.5% disagreed and thought passengers on low cost carriers should pay. A large 35.5% however would prefer carriers to increase the airfare by a couple of dollars and provide free water on board.
AirlineRatings.com feels that water should be provided complimentary and to reflect this we in fact deduct a half star from the product rating of any airline that didn’t provide free water to its passengers, but theres two sides to this argument.
The argument from the airlines is that they are providing low cost travel and allowing passengers the choice to buy what they want and therefore spend what they want. It’s called unbundling. There is no denying it, a low cost carrier airfare without any add ons is generally speaking, a bargain! In addition to this, the profit margin on an airfare can be as low as $2 or much less so suddenly the water sold to you at a hefty mark up on board becomes critical to the airlines bottom line.
If water is offered to every passenger on board, this cost will undoubtably be added on to your airfare – but it’s water, and when purchased in bulk it’s cheap!!
In the air you are paying up to $3.00 for a bottle and generally you need two or three on a medium length flight. Would passengers prefer “free” water at a cost of $1 or $2 extra on their ticket? According to the survey over a third of passengers would be happy with this and see it as a fair way to do things for both the airline and the passenger.
There is no doubt that ancillary fees are important. For example, in 2012, US airlines collected $6-billion from customers in baggage and/or change of flight fees but without that much-maligned money airlines would have lost $8.12 per passenger. As it is, ancillary fees allowed US airlines to make 37 cents profit per passenger or about $264 million.
Perhaps what is needed is a better fee /product relationship so that passengers feel they getting value.
