One place you’d never expect to see the orange tailfins of EasyJet is London Heathrow airport. Well, if EasyJet wins some slots at Heathrow, this could well happen.
EasyJet is competing with for some of the remedy slots that International Airlines Group has had to give up when they purchased BMI. These remedy slots which are for other airlines to fight over have some restrictions and routing, with EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic now in a tussle for these slots.
EasyJet foresees a large market for low-cost carrier services to and forth Moscow, with commercial director Cath Lynn saying:
“Moscow is a big route”
“I think it would be interesting to the consumer if we could get a different type of carrier on that route.”
She also states if the bid is successful,
“I’m absolutely convinced our fares will be lower than legacy operators.”
To say this would put the cat amongst the pigeons would be the understatement of the year. Currently the London – Moscow route is operated directly by:
- British Airways
- BMI (now part of BA)
- Aeroflot
- Transaero
With the exit of a UK company (BMI), another can take its place on the direct route. All of the companies are traditional legacy airlines. To put an LCC (well, high end LCC as EasyJet is positioning itself these days) will either force a price war or much more hardening on prices on these routes to.
All of this is dependant on EasyJet getting those magic slots. If they do, you can be sure that Virgin Atlantic will be annoyed as hell with them for getting those slots… which will probably to yet another moanfest…
