The "off-season low-price war" in the aviation market reflects the trend of service differentiation, and low-cost airlines are leading the industry change.
News reference**: A synthesis of information on online news, airline official websites and booking platforms.
With the end of the Spring Festival holiday, air tickets** showed a significant downward trend, and even the publicity of 0 yuan air tickets appeared. Recently, a booking screenshot appeared on a booking platform of Spring Airlines' one-way route from Shanghai to Osaka with a price of 0 yuan and a total price of 402 yuan including tax, but this ** is not directly provided by the airline, but ** or the result of the platform's subsidy based on Spring Airlines' minimum ticket of 9 yuan (excluding tax).
In the traditional off-season, in order to attract passengers with non-rigid needs, many airlines such as Spring Airlines have launched tax-exclusive air tickets as low as 9 yuan, covering many international routes including Japan, Singapore, and Jeju Island in South Korea. This initiative reflects the post-pandemic nature of the aviation market, which is "more prosperous in the peak season and lighter in the off-season", and reflects the current situation of airlines' flexible operation strategies to cope with fluctuations in market demand.
Despite the low cost of airfares, airlines can maximize their revenue by controlling the number of cabins and setting strict conditions of use, such as restrictions on checked baggage, refunds, changes and non-meals. At the same time, low-cost airlines such as Spring Airlines also offer different class options, such as Business Economy, to meet the needs of different customer groups, ensuring profitability through increased load factor even during the off-season.
It is worth noting that this refined service and pricing strategy is gradually being adopted by full-service airlines. For example, China Eastern Airlines has launched a variety of product classifications such as Basic Economy, Economy Flex and Premium Economy on some of its international routes, setting different ** and benefit restrictions based on passengers' different needs for services. Globally, more than 20 traditional large airlines have also begun to follow this "brand-based" model, including five-star airlines such as Singapore Airlines.
In the face of increasingly diversified customer needs, airlines have gradually established a differentiated service product system to attract more levels of consumers. However, in the process of implementing differentiated services, how to effectively communicate service standards and charging rules to avoid complaints and misunderstandings caused by passengers' cognitive differences has become an urgent problem for airlines to solve. In the future, airlines need to strengthen external communication and popularization of science while promoting service innovation to ensure that consumers fully understand and accept the new service model.
The above content is the author's personal opinion, does not contain any political color, and does not represent any political position.