Big range of fares across Atlantic

Press, 6 May 1980, Page 19

Big range of fares across Atlantic

No-one today is likely to need reassuring that it is “impossible for the pilot to loop the ioop” as the London-based travel agency, Thomas Cook, did in a 1919 air travel brochure, but there are other kinds of anxiety about flying. The prevailing one concerns the price you pay for a ticket.

On a trans-Atlantic London-New York Tight the cost can range from £1293 ($3070) for Concorde to £75 ($178) for a single standby fare. Sometimes a fullfare customer who has laid out £594 ($1411) for a return ticket may well encounter a fellow passenger- on apex, who has paid onty £209 ($496). Ignorance is not bliss where buying an air ticket is concerned and it pays, sometimes handsomely, to have a general knowledge of the world’s airfare structures.

The regular fares are first class and economy except in Europe where British Airways is leading the way in replacing first class by club class.

First class is first class and the passenger who can pay the fare is cossetted throughout the flight with free drinks, smiles from the hostesses, extra

comfortable seats, a la carte meals, and expeditious check-in and luggage claim facilities.

Economy may or may not include free goodies, depending on whether the ticket is upper or lower tier, and it is often the economy passenger who has paid considerably more than the apex passenger sitting next to him who will complain that he does not get more privileges. But one privilege he does get is that he is not bound by advance-purchase restrictions. The apex passenger, on the other hand, has to book and pay usually 21 days before nis departure and once tire flight is confirmed, there are penalties for cancellation or change of flight. Apex fares are a scheduled airline fare and were introduced in England partly to combat the low fares .offered by ABC (advanced booking charter) which had been making inroads into the regular airlines’ traffic. ABC’s are only available on the trans-Atlantic route however, and are a charter operation subject (.occasionally) to flight-time changes. The cheapest fare on the transAtlantic run is standby, pioneered by Sir Freddie Laker and now offered by most airlines on the day of departure and with some limited forward bookings possible.