Air travel cheaper than before

Chris Moerdyk

I am convinced that travelling by air is cheaper now than it ever has been in the history of aviation.

Just look at this simple statistic.

If airfares had kept pace with the increase in the price of motor cars for example, the cheapest economy class return airfare between South Africa and Europe would not be less than about R80 000.

Admittedly though, air travel has become a bit of bind since 9/11 and the onset of stringent security measures at airports. But, once you are aboard the aircraft you are probably experiencing the cheapest way possible of getting from A-B.

No wonder most airlines are struggling to make ends meet. The competition our there is brutal and it is at times like these that airlines are beginning to realise that survival is not just a question of offering the lowest price but also about brand loyalty.

And the most astonishing example of airline brand loyalty I have ever come across was on a recent long haul flight from Cape Town to Vancouver via London. I was chatting to a fellow traveller on my British Airways flight about air travel and airlines and he said that he was so loyal the BA brand that if a cabin crew member fell ill or they were short staffed on a flight he would willingly get up and help serve meals.

After I insisted on seeing his ID and business card to make sure he wasn't a BA employee, I got to thinking about just how brand loyal one would have to be to offer to help in a situation instead of just complain about the drop in service delivery that would result from this scenario.

The more I thought about it, the more I came to agree with him. I would probably do the same because the point he made was that he had flown BA for so long he felt part of the family.

I must say that is something BA has managed to do, I have been a member of BA's Executive Club loyalty programme for 20 years now, if only from the point of view that by my wife and I using our BA MasterCards for absolutely every purchase from groceries to electricity, movies, appliances, we're able to earn air miles. Which, unlike Voyager, don't ever expire. And as I tell all those Voyager members who contact me to whinge about expiring points and never being able to actually use them, I have never in two decades had so much as a single bad experience from the BA's Executive Club.

But, getting back to service, something else I learnt from BA a long time ago and which made me ferociously brand loyal to them, was not the benefits one gets from frequent travel but rather what it is that makes the service some people provide so much better than others.

And it's all in the eyes. Try it next time to travel by air or talk to a shop assistant or have to deal with Home Affairs or your local municipality.

Look into the eyes of the people serving you. It's fascinating because they're a dead giveaway. Someone can have the biggest smile on their face but somehow their eyes will tell you that they're just doing that because their boss told them to.

Over the past 20 years I have made a point of looking into the eyes of BA cabin crew and with very few exceptions what their eyes have told me is that they genuinely want to make my trip as comfortable as possible.

By the way, British Airways didn't pay for my recent trip, I cashed in a few years of air miles to do it. I just reckon that instead of criticising something as I usually do in this column, this week I would just give credit where it was due.