TokyoTomo Travel Guide

According to a survey conducted by Appleworld, 77.5% of its website visitors knew about foreign low cost airlines (low cost carrier or LCC in short). Of all respondents, 83.0% of men and 71.5% of women replied in the affirmative. Many of the Appleworld’s site visitors like to travel abroad individually. In fact, 28.3% of those surveyed have actually used services of LCC and 96.1% of them replied that they would fly LCC again in the future. Out of those who have not experienced LCC service, 64.1% wishes to fly with LCC in the future. Only 10.3% of them had no experience with LCC and declined to use their services. In terms of an age bracket, 36% of those in 20s or younger have actually traveled on LCC while only 14.3% of senior travelers in 60s and over had a flying experience with LCC. The low cost airlines, LCC, indeed attract young travelers.

In terms of airlines used, Air Asia (AK) and Air Asia X (D7) were voted as top LCCs, registering a share of 20.1% in the survey, followed by a US carrier, Southwest Airlines (WN) with a 16% share. Appleworld analyzes that these LCCs attract both individual leisure and business travelers. JetStar Airways (JQ) which operates Japan routes ranked third with a share of 14.8%. Viva Macau Airlines (ZG) and Cebu Pacific (5J) had a share of 1.78% and 0.59% respectively.

Asked about their customer service, 59.2% of those surveyed said, “We want LCC to provide affordable fares as low as possible yet with standard in-flight service including seat pitch,” largely exceeding 19.7% of those respondents who demanded, “What we need is the cheapest possible fare, by all means.” On the other hand, the rest of 21.1% requested that, provided the fare is affordable, they would like decent customer service, including in-flight service and seat pitch, partly superior to the existing airlines. The survey concludes that LCC, when operating Japan routes, is required to offer customers attractive prices, yet with reasonable quality of service on board.

The survey was conducted at the “Appleworld.com” in the form of a questionnaire between November 19 and 25. Total of 360, specifically, 188 male and 172 female, in the age bracket of 20s to 60s and over, responded to the on-line questionnaires.

Source: Travel Vision

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