Airlines need to take the risk out of travel

Right now travel is perceived as risky. What happens if I get sick? What happens if a family member falls ill? What happens if a low risk destination becomes a high risk destination?

All those things are barriers to travel, helped on by a daily drumbeat of alarmist newspaper front pages.

The key therefore is for airlines to take as much risk out of the equation as possible, otherwise people won’t fly. One part of that is to show how the cabin environment is clean. The other part is to relax cancellation and change fees, and a number of airlines have started to do just that.

JetBlue

Despite most of its network being domestic / US, JetBlue was the first airline to recognise that air travel needs to be de-risked in allowing for no penalty changes and cancellations.

In what CNBC called a ‘surprise move’, JetBlue announced on 26 February that it would waive cancellation and change fees for bookings made up to March 11th for travel until June.

CNBC said that it would ‘put pressure on others to follow suit’, which is exactly what happened.

Alaska Airlines

On a blog post, Alaska Airlines outlined some of the measures it was taking to keep aircraft clean, while mirroring JetBlue’s move of suspending cancellation / change fees (in this case on bookings made up to 12 March).

American Airlines

American Airlines has done the same, with the booking period being up to March 16th.

Delta

Delta has committed to allowing all international flights booked over March to be changed / cancelled. The world’s second biggest airline has also put up a page, which is all about aircraft cleaning and sanitation.

British Airways

Over on the other side of the Atlantic, British Airways announced a ‘Book with Confidence’ promotion. In line with what the major US airlines are doing, a zero change fee applies to new bookings on any route made until 16 March.

Though this clearly has to be the way forward if you want people to fly, not everyone on social media was happy. Some pointed out that people booking now are well aware of the risks, while people who booked months ago are being penalised and are unable to change their flights.

Westjet and Air Transat

At time of writing, the latest airlines to follow suit were Candadian carriers Westjet and Air Transat.

Air Transat introduced a ‘book with peace of mind’ policy for flights booked in March, while WestJet’s offer is called ‘ book with confidence.’ No doubt by the time this publication appears many other airlines will have done the same.

Quite simply, if people are not feeling confident about flying and Airline A offers full refunds while Airline B on the same route is not, then obviously a lot of people will choose the one that offers free cancellations or changes, even if it’s slightly more expensive.