Randy's Journal: Archives

27 January 2005

Buzz in the blogosphere

Who ever knew that the musings of an airplane marketeer could set off such a buzz in the blogosphere?

Turns out, since I started rambling in cyberspace, this page has gotten quite a bit of attention. I think it’s all good. And I just want to say that this journal, or blog, or whatever you want to call it, is in its infancy, and as we move forward you’ll see all sorts of neat enhancements, links, etc.

So, keep this bookmark hot. There’s more to come

Now, back to the question that I asked last week. How do you want to fly?

The answer is obvious. We travel by air to save time, and as kids we all learned that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That’s point to point. It is also the most efficient way!

Let’s take a look at some industry data which contain some pretty clear answers on how airlines have been responding to our desires to save time.

Since 1984, air travel has tripled. And in that same time, flight frequencies have more than doubled and city pairs have almost doubled. But here’s the key thing: average airplane size remained about the same.

Let’s narrow the time frame a bit to the last 10 years. Since 1995, world air travel has increased 45%, and frequencies have increased slightly more. City pairs have also increased by more than 30%. And guess what? At the same time, average airplane size has decreased.

So what’s going on? The data says airlines have responded to the growth in air travel by increasing the non-stop city pairs and by increasing the frequency of routes. Airlines realize - you guessed it - that people want to fly where they want to go, when they want to go.

Think about it. Don’t you want non-stop flights and lots of choices so you can pick the most direct, most convenient flight? I just don’t think that, given a choice, folks want to fly from hub to hub and then have to get on yet another connecting flight or two.

And when the 7E7 Dreamliner takes to the air, it will directly link more cities because it has the range and the efficiencies to create incredible new city pairs - and even more frequencies. Because that’s the way we want to fly. It’s in the data.