The Air France-KLM Group plans to enter the low-cost, long-haul travel market.

A spokesperson for Air France-KLM told Tourism Update that, as part of its strategic ‘Trust Together’ project, the group was looking at current market trends, including low-cost long-haul options. However, she says no concrete plans are in place for a long-haul LCC yet.

Whether a long-haul LCC between Europe and South Africa would be viable is questionable, industry experts say.

“I am sceptical whether a ‘true’ LCC will operate non-stop scheduled flights between Europe and South Africa,” says Marc Israel, Researcher of Airline Profiler. He says currently the longest long-haul LCC flight remains under eight hours, mainly because aircraft rotation should be maximised in an LCC model in order to sell the greatest number of seats.

Dr Peter Morrell, Author of ‘Can long-haul low-cost airlines be successful?’, agrees and says applying the low-cost model on long-haul routes works best using single-aisle aircraft on sectors of up to about five to six hours. “Longer flights require larger wide-body aircraft,” he says, adding that he doubts whether Air France could get its costs low enough to compete on price (or service quality) on longer sectors.  

However, AASA CEO, Chris Zweigenthal, is not as quick to dismiss the idea. “This is largely an untested market but as airlines look to make air travel even more affordable, this is an option. It is clearly a lot longer flight time than normal LCC flights and passengers may require up to two meals and drinks. Airlines using a long-haul LCC model would have to factor in these costs as well as costs for additional services, such as inflight entertainment – if available on board – in the total cost of the trip.”