Flying On Smaller And Low-Cost Airlines

According to a study by "Consumer Reports Travel Letter," which included 16 small and low-fare airlines (14 domestic and two Canadian), 14 percent of all passengers travel in smaller carriers. So "Consumer Reports Travel Letter" editor Bill McGee visits The Early Show to offer reasons to take advantage of low-cost and small airlines.

The Department of Transportation defines major carriers as any airline that earns $1 billion in revenue.

"There are 10 major airlines in the U.S.," says McGee. "For the most part, when we speak of major airlines, except Southwest, they use a hub and spoke network." Southwest doesn't have a hub, which allows it to save money and offer cheaper fares. Some of the hub cities are Dallas, Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Newark. "You can't very often fly from point A to point B with a major carrier, you have to fly into one of their hubs," McGee explains.

According to McGee, here is why travelers should think about flying on small or low-cost air carriers:

• There is a big price advantage in using low-cost or low-fare airlines. They don't have as much overhead to cover as the big airlines.
• Small carriers often depart from smaller airports that are less congested, which reduces security delays. Examples: Jet Blue is based in New York. It will take travelers going to San Francisco to the airport in Oakland, instead of the main one San Francisco. When going to the Los Angeles area, it flies to Long Beach, Calif., (21 miles from LAX) instead of Los Angeles. And Southwest, the major low-cost carrier flies into Midway in Chicago instead of O'Hare airport. Eighty-one percent of flights arrived on time at Midway last year and that's the highest of any airport.
• Many smaller airlines don't require a Saturday night stay and don't penalize travelers for one-way bookings. The one-way fares on small or low-cost airlines are usually half the amount of the round-trip fare. Major carriers aren't normally that equitable.
• Smaller airlines tend to have fewer restrictions, in addition to lower fares, particularly if you are buying tickets close to your departure date.
• The low fares of major airlines won't last. According to the Consumers Travel Letter, the low prices that the major airlines offer won't last. "Major carriers have recently made several attempts to hike the highly restricted low fares that they advertise in newspapers. And the number of seats set aside for those rock-bottom fares is very limited," McGee says.

• They fly old planes and are operating on a shoestring budget. McGee gives a few examples why this isn't true. He says that in 2000, Jet Blue launched services with new planes and AirTrans and Frontier Airlines have placed orders for new planes.
• Are here today and gone tomorrow. Last year U.S. airlines carried more than 40 million fewer passengers, but the major airlines accounted for nearly all of the drop off. There were a few minor airlines that lost passengers and seemed to have financial difficulty, but most of them held on strong. So, passengers of smaller and low-fare carriers don't have to worry about buying a ticketonly to learn the company is going to go out of business.
• Skimp on maintenance and are less safe. They have to meet the same FDA standards as the big carriers. Also, because they are smaller, they are generally able to incorporate new safety requirements quicker.

• They offer fewer flights a day. "There is a risk when you are operating a small airline," McGee says. "At a small airline, things can go very wrong very quickly. One advantage the larger airlines have is, if there is a problem or a crew member gets sick, they have other planes and other crew to replace them." So make sure that you are not on the last flight of the day because if there are problems, you are stuck. Travelers should think about their trip and how problematic it would be for them if there is a delay. If they can't afford a long delay, they shouldn't take the risk of flying on a small carrier. Find out through the airlines' Web site or the airlines reservation agent if the small airline has an interline deal with another carrier.
• Smaller airlines have more customer complaints than the majors, says McGee and this is the primary reason why, flight delays. Even so, the number of complaints between the two groups is not dramatically different. Last year, the major airlines had 2.09 complaints per 100,000 passengers. According to Consumers, the smaller carriers were about evenly divided above and below that figure. Southwest and Aloha were ahead of the big carriers with .38 and .63 complaints per 100,000 passengers. Two smaller low-fare lines, Pan Am and Spirit, were the worst; each had more than 12 complaints per 100,000 passengers.
• Major airlines offer better frequent flyer deals and more ticket redeeming options.

You can get the same peanuts from a major carrier as you can on a smaller carrier. So, it makes sense to bring a brown bag for both. Many of the major airlines are also taking phones out, which was another extra service.

Longer check-in lines have also blurred the line that distinguishes the two groups. JetBlue is still the only carrier in the U.S. that has live television on seat back monitors. And Midwest Express still serves fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies and meals on china (minus the cutlery). The article points out that Midwest Express has never been a low-fare airline. Instead, it carved a niche by offering first-class service for the price of an unrestricted coach ticket.

The government helped all of the U.S. carriers this year with $5 billion in federal aid to compensate for the grounding of aircraft as a result of Sept. 11. The article says that these payments have had a bigger effect on the smaller lines, in terms of the service it offers. For example, Midway was able to offer some services that it had discontinued.

Small airlines don't have the money to promote their fares. So, one thing to keep in mind when booking flights on a small or low-cost airline is that they are not listed on travel Web sites like Travellocity or Expedia. You have to go to that airlines Web site or call that airline. Although Southwest airlines is a big carrier, a travel agent may not call up it's low-cost fares because it's not a part of the computer reservations system they use. It's up to the smart consumer to seek out these airlines and the fares they charge.