On the tarmac of our regional airports, we see more and more planes take off with colorful cabins and exotic names: Wizz Air, Buzz, Malta, Lauda, Volotea… The first common point of all these companies: they are low- cost, even ultra-low cost. Carriers who track management and organizational costs like no one else. And these cute little names and these devices decorated with a yellow bee, in bright pink or red gingham livery do not hide little players in the air. But many giants of the sky.
“Wizz Air has become the leading company in Eastern Europe,” recalls Xavier Tytelman, aeronautical consultant at Starburst Accelerator. It even succeeded where Ryanair had failed for years: obtaining slots at Orly, after the bankruptcy of Aigle Azur in 2019.” In the last quarter of 2021, Wizz Air transported 7.8 million passengers. For comparison, the Air France-KLM-Transavia group made 15.8 million travel. The company of Hungarian origin is so flourishing that it created the event by placing a huge order for 102 new planes with Airbus, during the last Dubai Air Show.
Ryanair at the controls
“In reality, Beauvais airport is essentially in the hands of two giant, ultra-low cost companies, which are waging a fierce war in the skies of Europe: Ryanair and Wizz Air, analyzes Emmanuel Combe, professor at Skema Business School and aviation specialist. Ryanair is the leading company in Europe with 450 planes, three to four times more than Air France in medium-haul. For now, Wizz Air is limited to Eastern Europe. It is difficult for it to obtain slots in the West. This is also the reason why it offered to buy EasyJet. »
Because behind the companies Malta Air (Malta), Buzz (Poland) and Lauda (Austria), it is actually Ryanair which is in charge. Just before Brexit, the Irish company repositioned part of its aircraft and its personnel in several subsidiaries. At the beginning of 2018, she created Ryanair Sun, renamed Buzz in the fall of 2019. In January 2019, she took a 100% stake in the company of former pilot Niki Lauda and, in June 2019, she created Malta Air. The reasons are strategic, economic and fiscal. Malta, for example, offers one of the most advantageous tax regimes in Europe, with a 0% rate on sales made outside the island while the Polish pilots of Buzz operate as independent entrepreneurs.
Low-cost does not necessarily rhyme with very low price
Alongside these giants, the Spanish Volotea is the small independent company that has been rising since 2012. “It opens lines everywhere and records growth of 10% per year, observes Xavier Tytelman. It multiplies niche lines, tests them and abandons them if they are not profitable. Volotea operates from seven bases in France: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Strasbourg and Toulouse. What to do good business on the consumer side? “The ticket price is not particularly cheap but as it offers Bordeaux-Corfu (120 euros for a one-way trip on June 26 and a return trip on July 3) or Caen-Toulouse (174 euros for a departure on June 27 and a return on July 4), it is necessarily more interesting for passengers than making a stopover in Paris”, observes the consultant.
Overall, “low cost does not mean low price”, summarizes Emmanuel Combe. In good French, low costs are not synonymous with low prices. Why ? “Because the price has three causes: production costs but also competition and demand”, recalls the economist. Thus, a ticket to a very tourist destination, in high season, will cost very expensive, as much, or even sometimes more than a traditional company. Count 192 euros on Volotea for a Paris-Corfu, departure on June 28 and return on July 5. Or 180 euros on Malta Air for a Paris-Malta, departure on June 29 and return on July 6. Especially since, unlike the latter, the low-cost operator makes the passenger pay supplements to choose their seat, eat a snack, check in baggage in the hold or even in the cabin. “When booking, you have to do your calculations and check the conditions for canceling the ticket”, invites Emmanuel Combe.
Take a good look at the flight frequencies too. The airline has a legal obligation to reimburse you if they are the cause of the cancellation or to relocate you on the next flight, but if you were to return on a Sunday and the next departure is on Wednesday… you will have lost three days of vacation and as many hotel expenses.
Safe planes but a sometimes brutal social policy
On the security side, however, there is no doubt. “If these companies access European territory, it is because they apply all the safety rules like the others”, recalls Emmanuel Combe. The low-cost ones are even all the more secure in that, extremely profitable, they have the means to regularly buy new planes.
There remain the social conditions in which employees operate. In April, staff at Vueling, Volotea and Ryanair filed strike notices to denounce their salaries, brutal management and chaotic schedules. Several cases have also landed on the judges’ desk. The latest: violations of flight and rest time noted at Volotea by the labor inspectorate, which brought the case to the Nantes court (Loire-Atlantique). The deliberation must be delivered on June 7.