KLM has been in a unique position for many years in being the only European airline to fly into Manila (even though it has been a tag on from Taipei and Hong Kong for several years). The other airlines all threw in the towel a long time ago. I would hazard a guess that many of the ladies travelling alone on the KLM flight were originating their journeys in Europe. They are part of the quite affluent European market where the airlines compete rigorously with each other. The ex-PH business class traffic would be interesting to analyse. Airlines don't tend to make their money on the £1,500 business class ticket. Those tickets serve the same purpose as the el-cheapo tickets in economy. They provide revenue to cover costs and make a bit of money. The *real* money is the businessman who books a couple of days before departure. The cheap fares have gone, so his company books the rather expensive C/J fare at over £3,000. Maybe close to £5,000. First class....let's not go there. Kerching. The airline is happy. This is why New York and Hong Kong are such important routes for European airlines. How many Pinoy businessmen stump up over £3,000 for last minute business travel? I don't know. I would guess the answer is 'Not enough' which is why European airlines will route their PH bound traffic via Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok. Volume has never been the problem for PH traffic. The Filipino diaspora is so vast that you could fill up flights from many, many cities in Europe. It all comes down to the yield. The ME3 airlines (Etihad, Emirates, Qatar Airways) have such low cost bases that they can chuck multiple 777s at Manila, and A380s to places such as Prague and Casablanca. They are bums on seats airlines. If they can fill up the plane, they'll take a profit margin of a couple of %. European carriers will be looking at a 10% margin which is difficult for them to achieve.
Been a long time since KLM business was 1500 quid but I know what you mean. From flight seat watching on Expert Flyer I do know that around half of the seats (about 18 in KLM business) go in the last couple of weeks so they will be expensive, the KLM standard business offering is about £2200 return, at least last time I looked and to be honest it is not really worth that premium, my business class days are over I'll never spend that much in actual cash terms on a flight. My theory was that in its totality it is business and first that make the profit, the economy seats cover the cost of the flight with a couple of percent margin but if you can sell 35 business seats for around £90,000 then you have your profit. Emirates business is busy on the way out to Manila as well and their business offering is a good bit more expensive I think.
Didn't I read somewhere that Cardiff International Airport will soon be flying to Asia Direct? Or was I dreaming? I do have some strange dreams, must be missing my woman too much!
I think it might be Qatar airways, they are the only ones that fly direct to the middle east on the Cardiff airport website.
An interesting thread , I also find dealing with airline one of the most annoying and frustrating experiences about travelling . As posted above , a one way flight is more or less the same price as a return , so basically no point in booking one way . Equally annoying was when I tried to change a flight date , and it was less expensive to book a new flight . Re using Skyscanner of other flight search providers , I always delete history and clear cookies after searching now . This often seems to affect the price on next search .
