Ryanair on Rail

[mike57]

I think one of the attractions of rail travel is the turn up and go aspect. Got a heavy backpack and suitcase, no problem, dog on a lead, or folding buggy same thing. Some operators offer a choice of seats in first class (Hull trains is one), and even where a choice isnt offered you can usually specify facing or back and window or aisle, and possibly table.

How would you enforce baggage costs, a big stack of suitcases in the end luggage stack, who do they belong to? So luggage would have to be checked, so no arriving at 15:55 to just make the 16:00.

If I am going to upgrade my seat I would rather get a 1st class advance ticket, for a generally more comfortable journey, and possibly a snack and a drink thrown in, Otherwise I will use the trolley/buffet car if there is one.

Unless fares were real rock bottom the Ryanair model would mean I would use a different 'traditional' operator, and even at rock bottom if its a 3-4 hour journey I want some level of comfort, so being squashed into a too small seat with no leg room (typical low cost airline experience) have hung about the airport station for an hour or more before departure isnt going to work for me, or I suspect a lot of others.

After all for a lot of longer journeys if I wanted the miserable experience that flying frequently is these days then I could actually fly, and maybe save some time particularly if the turn up and go aspect of rail is removed.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What about toilets? 50p a go? Pay on the door?

Ryanair shout about this but don't do it simply because its typical clientelle would just be urinating in sick bags and bottles if they did.

But one of the key aspects of all this is that the car (where you can go when you want and take what you want) doesn't compete with most air travel. It does with most rail travel.

 

[bspahh]

IFE is dying with the proliferation of WiFi on planes. So transfering a concept to trains that is already on the way out makes no sense

If a budget rail operator gave you a screen to watch stuff on, its not for your entertainment. Its for in-your-face targeted advertising.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If a budget rail operator gave you a screen to watch stuff on, its not for your entertainment. Its for in-your-face targeted advertising.

Which can of course still be pushed out via personal devices if you're watching the "free" entertainment.

 

[NSE]

Ryanair shout about this but don't do it simply because its typical clientelle would just be urinating in sick bags and bottles if they did.

But one of the key aspects of all this is that the car (where you can go when you want and take what you want) doesn't compete with most air travel. It does with most rail travel.

It’s also free advertising. Michael O’Leary makes a controversial statement and everyone starts printing/typing ‘RyanAir this’ and ‘RyanAir’ that, free advertising. He never intends to put in half of these ideas. He just wants people talking about RyanAir

 

[Bletchleyite]

It’s also free advertising. Michael O’Leary makes a controversial statement and everyone starts printing/typing ‘RyanAir this’ and ‘RyanAir’ that, free advertising. He never intends to put in half of these ideas. He just wants people talking about RyanAir

Plus that "Ryanair is penny pinching" embeds the idea "Ryanair is cheap".

 

[birchesgreen]

The OP's idea is interesting but as many have pointed out it would be difficult to apply the model to the railways.

Another complication would be with connecting services, for example taking a local train to the big station to where you catch your Ryanair-esque service. Seems like the 5-10 minute transfer time a lot of planners give you would be problematic. Plus would you have to leave through the barriers first so you had to re-enter for all your luggage checks?

 

[gerryuk]

I need to get to Gateshead from the midlands on Thursday eve and I’ve not even started thinking about it yet as I know I don’t need to plan and book luggage etc.
if I were flying then it would already be booked as well as a taxi to the airport.
They are just different modes of transport serving different needs!

But there will be no difference for you and others who just want to turn up and go, nobody is denying you that option. If it was available, why deny those who wish to plan ahead and and pay significantly less for their ticket on the same route? It called choice and competition.

 

[The Planner]

But there will be no difference for you and others who just want to turn up and go, nobody is denying you that option. If it was available, why deny those who wish to plan ahead and and pay significantly less for their ticket on the same route? It called choice and competition.

Thats what current advance fares do as part of yield management.

 

[bspahh]

Another complication would be with connecting services, for example taking a local train to the big station to where you catch your Ryanair-esque service. Seems like the 5-10 minute transfer time a lot of planners give you would be problematic. Plus would you have to leave through the barriers first so you had to re-enter for all your luggage checks?

Short transfer times mean you can get lots of people using an expensive station. If you make them turn up an hour in advance, then you need a load more space for them to wait. That is fine if its an airport in the middle of nowhere, where land is cheap and the main expense is the cost of building a big tin shed.

Its not fine to have people waiting for a long time if you need your train to go into a city centre, when the land will be expensive.

Building railway stations in the middle of nowhere means you can have a cheap building for passengers to wait. However, its easier to arrange the onward travel connections for 200 passengers on a plane like a 737 than 800 passengers on a full train.

 

[Peter Wilde]

I think there's more paranoia about lost bags than justified, really. Out of about 250 flight segments (far more than most people will do in their lifetimes) I've had bags delayed twice (arrived the next day) and actually lost 0 times. Some airports are notorious for them not making connections (Schiphol is one) but most people choose direct flights.

I furthermore suspect that of the ones that do get totally lost, quite a lot are due to people who don't take the old labels off.

Paranoia about lost bags? Maybe. But does happen - to me once when travelling to a holiday and was highly inconvenient (ski tour in wilds of Norway, no shops whatsoever accessible to buy replacements for missing specialist kit). Some of my family lost all 3 of their bags from one flight - these turned up some days later; fortunately this was on the trip home, so less hassle.

 

[6Gman]

But there will be no difference for you and others who just want to turn up and go, nobody is denying you that option. If it was available, why deny those who wish to plan ahead and and pay significantly less for their ticket on the same route? It called choice and competition.

And there's little to stop open access operators choosing such an option. But it's noteworthy that none have. I suspect because the market for such an option is too small to support such an operation. Especially if they are paying "significantly less for their ticket on the same route".

 

[Bletchleyite]

And there's little to stop open access operators choosing such an option. But it's noteworthy that none have. I suspect because the market for such an option is too small to support such an operation. Especially if they are paying "significantly less for their ticket on the same route".

Lumo's reason if I recall for not doing the "full Ryanair" with buy-ups and the likes is that railway retail systems don't support it. There's presumably also the underlying "and doing our own would cost too much, and we'd lose the ORCATS raid".

 

[Caaardiff]

The Ryanair business model isn't just built on add-ons. It's based on cost savings elsewhere. They do deals with Airports on the basis of getting passengers through Airport doors. Airports then earn their revenue from add-ons, such as parking, retail, food etc. Airports actually earn very little from Airline parking and landing charges.
Also there's some criticism of the "type of Ryanair passenger". The type of passenger using Ryanair, is generally using Easyjet, TUI, Jet2, even BA. Look at how BA has had to cut it's level of service to save money in order to compete with the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet.
Ryanair pay is generally lower than more than other Airlines but isn't obscenely low. They flex their muscles a lot with staff terms, pay and Airports in order to keep costs low.
The railway is still stuck in the original BA model, but needing to provide cheaper service and save costs.
Aviation is general has modernised much quicker than the Railways, and the railways needs to catch up. Mobile/online booking systems, online tickets, online customer service and the ability to sort things out yourself is the modern way forward. Without bringing up the debate on Ticket Offices. Many Airlines closed their ticket offices to save costs and centralised them and improved the online offering of sorting things out yourself. The railway to a certain degree needs to do the same.

The only way of doing that would be setting up new TOC's. Current TOC's have historic costs they'll never get rid of. A new TOC could pay less (Lets not forget railway pay is very good), could reduce staffing costs by having less Ticket Office overheads and face to face staffing. Not necessarily great for passengers, but it's ultimately the way forward in many ways.
It would be difficult for a TOC to raise add-on revenue in the same way Airlines do. With Airports you're hanging around waiting for your flight, so willing to do some shopping, buy some food, treat yourself to lounges. Railways don't see the same type of waits.
Ryanair charge extra for checked in baggage because they have to pay handling agents to sort and load the bags. People load their own bags onto trains. The only reason they started charging for hand luggage is to reduce the overall weight on the aircraft as well as seeing another opportunity to charge for something and earn revenue. Baggage isn't the way to go for the Railway. It would be too difficult to police. There are several points at Airports where checks are done, and you're in a confined, restricted space. Something the railway is not

The only way I see a Ryanair style model working is via a new operator, with sufficiently long trains to enable segregation. With Airlines, Premium is a much more popular product than First Class these days.
Lets say there's a 9 car IET.
1 Carriage of First class, offering more comfortable seats in a 2+1 layout, legroom, better quality at seat catering (no kitchen style required though) with seat reservations.
3-4 carriages of Standard Premium, offering more comfortable seats but not top quality like First in a 2+2 layout but with standard legroom, with seat reservations only.
All of these carriages could be served by an on board team of 2-3 people.
An App created enabling the passenger to sign into their booking and order food and drinks to be brought to them, in First this could be complimentary, in Standard Premium there could be a small charge for the delivery.

These carriages can only be access by scanning a ticket (mobile or printed board pass style) at the door of the carriage to highly reduce the chance of someone entering without a valid ticket. The layout of the carriage may need to be looked at, maybe slightly further inside to avoid queueing out of the door and increasing dwell times. An IET design with additional exterior doors may need to be looked into.

An on board cafe offering "buy on board" hot snacks etc that Ryanair et al offer, with seat reservations only. It doesn't need to be a big space, Ryanair do it in the galley of an aircraft!
The remaining carriages are pretty much a free-for-all. No reservations, cheaper ticket class, risk of standing. No at seat catering, use of the cafe

During times of disruption... If you don't get your original train and seat then you get reimbursed a certain amount.

A lot of this would only work with a long distance operator

 

[eldomtom2]

Coaches in the UK have started going down the route of compulsory reservation / additional charge for seat selection. It looks like a healthy earner as well.

On Megabus, half the seats are for specific reservations, and half general seating. When the general seating runs out, the remaining passengers have to pay for the specific reservation seats. It is fairly clear that passengers don't necessarily want to pay for reservations, but the outcome is they sit in a more crowded part of the coach.

That could translate fairly easily to the railway whereby some coaches would be set aside for compulsory reservations at extra cost, and passengers without only a counted place reservation didn't have access to those coaches.

Once the counted place reservations were used up, passengers would have to book in the coaches attracting an additional payment for a specific seat. Tickets would be valid only in the seat booked, with it being necessary to check in at that seat. Any walk on passengers would have to find room in the general seating, or stand in the general seating coaches. If they took a seat in the specific seating area that isn't reserved, an additional charge would be payable.

It would be terrible, but it shows how it could be done.

This is in fact how Shinkansen services in Japan are operated - most trains have more reserved than non-reserved carriages, all first class carriages are reserved, and some services are reserved seat-only. However, there are a couple important notes to take into account:

• When you buy a reserved seat, you purchase both a seat reservation and a regular ticket. The seat reservation is only valid for a particular train while the ticket is valid for any service within a certain timeframe. Therefore, if you miss your reserved train you can take a later train in the non-reserved carriages.
• Railways in Japan are not allowed to use demand-based pricing. Both ticket and reservation prices are fixed.

 

[The Ham]

One factor which people forget (or probably don't think about) is that standard class seats in trains are larger than most first first class seats on aircraft (typically 3+2 seats are the exception to this) and have more leg room.

If you were to launch a TOC with airline sizes seats in standard, they could then offer first class (which would be the same seating as current standard in existing trains but with a free drink and a sandwich from a vending machine - scan your ticket, if you want more then you can buy it) and then premium first class (which would be the same seats as first class but with a better choice of free foods then the existing competition offers).

Price wise if you could set them as a maximum of 10% less than the current standard ticket, typical between standard and first class (but early bird offers where they're a bit cheaper than normal tickets) and then 10% more than first class tickets.

If you have no booking if seats for standard, but try to aim to have over 100% occupied by offering a lot of tickets for not a lot of money, however then offer the ability to upgrade on the train (obviously for an inflated price compared to booking in advance) so that people would be able to be sure of a seat if they haven't got one.

 

[Silenos]

Remember you are paying far less for your ticket with the Ryanair model than you are paying for the system we have today.

except that isn’t quite how Ryanair’s model works, is it? Book well in advance on a flight that is not, based on experience, expected to be busy, and you’ll probably be offered a cheap fare. Book the same flight for tomorrow, because you absolutely have to be there, and you’ll pay through the nose, as much as you would for a conventional carrier. Book in advance for a flight they know is going to be busy, because of a holiday or big event, and it will be the same story. So if the trains follow that model, your Christmas trip to the family or your summer holiday trip to the seaside could well cost you several hundred pounds before you start the add-ons

 

[Bletchleyite]

When you buy a reserved seat, you purchase both a seat reservation and a regular ticket. The seat reservation is only valid for a particular train while the ticket is valid for any service within a certain timeframe. Therefore, if you miss your reserved train you can take a later train in the non-reserved carriages.

In effect this is how LNER SeatSure / Avanti's half job of it (i.e. fake compulsory reservations) works. Interesting that we aren't the only ones at it.

 

[gerryuk]

except that isn’t quite how Ryanair’s model works, is it? Book well in advance on a flight that is not, based on experience, expected to be busy, and you’ll probably be offered a cheap fare. Book the same flight for tomorrow, because you absolutely have to be there, and you’ll pay through the nose, as much as you would for a conventional carrier.

That's exactly how Ryanair works, how can you say its not? I really don't get your statement.

 

[Silenos]

That's exactly how Ryanair works, how can you say its not? I really don't get your statement.

You made a blanket statement that the ticket would be cheaper with the Ryanair model. I am pointing out that this is quite often not the case.

I would also point out that other elements of the Ryanair model appear to be undercutting competition from competitors at smaller destinations until the competition is driven away, at which point fares can become higher, and bullying those smaller destinations into avoiding any infrastructure investment that results in increased landing fees. Both the latter are hard to replicate in the railway context.