Fifty years ago, well before Sir Freddie Laker's Skytrain, a 189-seater narrowbody aircraft flew the first long-haul, low-cost flights across the Atlantic. The Canadair CL-44 turboprop was operated by Loftleioir, the Icelandic airline that would later merge with Icelandair. The combined carrier has continued to fill a low-cost niche flying between Europe and North America, serving 39 destinations - often secondary cities that would not support one-stop flights. Yet in the half-century since the low-cost carrier (LCC) revolution began, notably fuelled in the 1970s by Southwest and in the 1980s by Ryanair - also operating 189-seater narrowbodies - the definition of an LCC has become increasingly muddied. Is a low-cost carrier by its nature a low-fare carrier? How much of a role can a full-service legacy airline have in an LCC? What can LCCs teach other airlines - and the rest of the aviation industry? And where are LCCs going from here?
展开▼
