[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he expense of flights to and from Saint Lucia is something that frustrates most locals, particularly because so many of the issues are a result not of distance or demand, but red tape. The issue of airline red tape is not unique to Saint Lucia, but it is on this island that its impact is highly visible.
With its tourism industry the cornerstone of the national economy, the passage of people to Saint Lucia via air travel will always be a critical consideration in planning for future economic growth.
So why does Saint Lucia have to deal with such expensive airfares? And what could be done to address the problem? Let’s look now in-depth.
If the Wright Brothers knew back in 1903 the headaches that would one day come with the commercial airline industry they may have been tempted to keep the Kitty Hawk on the ground for a few more years.
Thanks to airplanes it’s today possible to travel between continents in less than 24 hours. You can circumnavigate the globe with ease on an around-the-world ticket. But when it comes to the relatively straightforward flight from Miami, Florida to Saint Lucia, it’s confirmed for travellers near and far that the airline industry still has a long way to journey.
While prices do vary depending on day and airline, a typical return trip from Miami to Saint Lucia costs north of US$900. This is in stark contrast to a regular flight from New York where round-trip travel from the Big Apple to Saint Lucia’s Hewanorra International Airpoirt can be purchased for around $600, oftentimes well below $400. And instead of travel time requiring over one day, this flight can typically be done in under 5 hours.
Certainly some allowance needs to be given for the greater population and economic pull of New York compared to the Floridian city. On the other hand, that trip from New York to Saint Lucia is an extra 500 miles, being approximately 2,000 in total compared to Miami’s distance of 1,500 from Saint Lucia. 500 more miles yet far less expense. This factor is among many that point to a problem that is simple to identify: the modern airline industry is broken.
As an industry, airlines commonly have razor-thin profit margins and volatility. This applies not only to selling tickets, but widely throughout the business.
The rapid up and downs that a typical stock in an airline can produce from one year to the next are commonly accompanied by outdated regulations. Then there are the ‘dirty tricks’ by established carriers in many airports around the world that make it difficult for new carriers to establish themselves on the scene.
The battle of Virgin Airlines founder and Necker Island resident Richard Branson with British Airways in the early 1990s is today seen as a textbook example of such behaviour as the latter sought to put Virgin out of business via a number of underhand methods.
Alongside the woes of the industry, there’s the reality of simple supply and demand. Saint Lucia had a terrific year for visitors in 2017, reporting a new record high of over 1.1 million visitors. This great result is testament not simply to those who carried tourists here, but ultimately the great businesses and communities that enticed them to visit.
Despite this terrific achievement, 1.1 million visitors to the island, especially when split among transport from commercial airplane flights to cruise ships and beyond, is a far cry from the 13.4 million trips annually on the world’s busiest air route, from South Korea’s capital of Seoul to the resort island of Jeju off the Korean Peninsula.
While Seoul to Jeju is the leader, all of the top ten busiest air routes in the world see at least over 5 million trips per year. As a result, when new airlines do arrive on scene, often they target already established local routes with high traffic, or routes experiencing colossal growth, such as mega cities throughout booming Asian nations.
Despite these challenges, there are avenues for Saint Lucia’s tourism industry to navigate a smooth path in the future.
Recent years have seen the rise of online price comparison websites across traditional industries. Concert tickets, hotel websites, and travel modes have been common targets among aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to offer a new service to the market.
Unfortunately the highly regulated environment of the airline industry and the thin profit margins of many flights means that online start-ups and established airlines often find little common ground.
The widespread popularity of existing airlines and their marketing means that even those who bravely enter this space can find it a hard task to carve out a profitable share. This doesn’t rule out a ‘killer app’ emerging altogether; it just makes smaller the prospects of one emerging to be a real game changer.
Despite this, though the airline industry may not be disruption-friendly, the tourism industry as a whole is. This has been seen across other areas of it, for example with the rise of Uber and Airbnb. For Saint Lucian tourism providers, a path is here for identifying avenues to offset the high expense of a tourist’s fare, especially when done in partnership with other providers. A flight from Saint Lucia to Miami may be expensive, and no traveller dreams of a 24-hour juggernaut with mulitple stops, but if the airline industry sees a gradual yet clear growth in arrivals via cruise ship over airplane, then suddenly those ‘expensive’ flights could face renewed pressure to decrease.
While prices do vary depending on day and airline, a typical return trip from Miami to Saint Lucia costs north of US$900. This is in stark contrast to a regular flight from New York where round-trip travel from the Big Apple to Saint Lucia’s Hewanorra International Airpoirt can be purchased for around $600, oftentimes well below $400.
With the upgrade of the Hewanorra International Airport, and its projected opening in 2020, the year ahead offers a key opportunity for local efforts to raise new awareness of the impact that expensive airfares have on local tourism.
Airline red tape may not be all undone in 12 calendar months but even the allocation of an extra flight or two per day to Saint Lucia with a reduced rate could have an impact on the bottom line of tourism revenue over the course of a year.
The reality is that the Saint Lucian tourism industry can look to make an array of optimisations and reforms to what it does within the nation’s borders, but the issue of high airline prices remains a bottleneck on profitability.
With a glittering new airport upgrade, and many airlines to observe the opening, there’s never been a better time for a collective push to see prices driven down. Ultimately, a growth in Saint Lucian tourism is not just good for the local economy, but for airlines too, as more tourists seek more tickets.
Saint Lucia may be playing for the home field here, but in this issue airlines can ill-afford to be turned away. For local providers seeking to prioritise which mode of travel they look to for their patrons, 2019 offers a great opportunity to push for change.
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