The MacCorquodale Castle

We’ve all heard of the European discount airlines such as RyanAir and EasyJet. These business models have always been somewhat of a mystery to me. How do you sell plane tickets for as low as €1 a person and stick around to tell the story? It’s always been clear that there’s some overselling going on (I’ve heard numbers upwards of 30%), but that’s still a far cry from covering the operating costs of the aircraft, let alone general overhead.

As I’ve been planning the details for our spring vacation to Greece, I’ve been introduced to the world of baggage fees. For the purposes of this post, I’ve converted all of the weights from KG to LBS and Euros to Canadian Dollars (CAD).

Let’s start with RyanAir, arguably the cheapest European operator:

• Included in your ticket is an allowance for one bag, weighing up to 33 LBS
• For $50, you can check a second bag, weighing up to 33 LBS
• If either bag exceeds 33 LBS, an overage charge of $15 per LBS is applied

The message? Don’t show up at the airport with your 50 LBS bag, or you’ll pay over $250 in overage charges.

For comparison purposes, let’s take a look at EasyJet, another discount European operator:

• No bag allowance is included in the purchase of your ticket
• Up to two bags, weighing 44 LBS each, may be purchased for $16 each
• If either bag exceeds 44 LBS, an overage charge of $8 per LBS is applied
• Regardless of what you pay, no single bag can exceed 70 LBS

If you’re travelling lightly, these limitations won’t cause a problem, but the key is to carefully plan and manage the weight of your bags or you could be stuck paying hundreds of dollars to catch that €1 flight.

That said, the fact that these airlines operate top notch aircraft (so I’ve been told), plus the higher cost of fuel in Europe, makes it difficult for me to believe that these operators are profitable simply off of the expectation that enough passengers will poorly plan their baggage requirements.

If there is anyone out there with additional knowledge of the European discount airline operating model, I would love to hear from you.

Over the last few months I’ve casually researched the availability of a VFR flight tracking service (a service that would allow those on the ground to monitor the progress of the flight in the air).

It seems the airlines have this cased with high end tracking systems, and even most general aviation IFR flights can be tracked using specialized services such as FlightAware (although their Canadian coverage is less than adequate). However, until now, it appears that a gap has existed in the general aviation VFR market.

Introducing SPOT .

I discovered SPOT in an article published by Aviation Consumer in June 2008 (and a reader response in July 2008) where it was presented as a potential alternative to ELTs/PLBs. SPOT is described as “the world’s first satellite messenger”. In short, it finds your latitude and longitude via an on-board GPS. With this information, it performs four different functions.

1. Tracking – Every ten minutes it will send your coordinates to the SPOT server, and pin your location on an Internet map (powered by Google Maps™) that you share with family and friends, in advance, so they may see your progress in real-time.
2. OK Message – At your discretion you may hit the “OK” button to send a pre-defined “everything’s OK” e-mail and/or text message to a list of recipients. Great to let those who care know that everything is OK.
3. HELP Message – At your discretion you may hit the “HELP” button to send a pre-defined “HELP” e-mail and/or text message to a list of recipients. Great if you find yourself in a non life threatening situation that you can’t get out of yourself. Those who care about you on the other end of the message will have the information necessary to send appropriate assistance.
4. 911 – At your discretion you may hit the “911″ button to send the cavalry. This sends your location and distress signal to an Emergency Response Center who ensures the proper response teams are notified (local police, RCMP/state police, coast guard, embassy, etc.).

After some research and discussions with a very accommodating Tim Crosby (National Retail Manager, SPOT), I purchased a unit of my own. My justification was piece of mind for family and I… while in actuality I’m fairly sure I bought it because it was a cool gadget, and I can’t get enough of my cool gadgets.

So far I’ve only had one opportunity to use the device but let me assure you, it did not disappoint. I was on a local CYQR flight (Craven->Regina Beach for anyone familiar with the area). I placed the SPOT device on the dash and, as my flight progressed, my path was plotted on the Internet map for my family and friends to see! I can see this as a great tool for those picking me up at my destination on future cross country flights.

For the relatively low cost, SPOT provides a great piece of mind that help can be obtained even when out of cell phone coverage; in addition to the VFR flight tracking capabilities I’ve been looking for.

If you’ve used SPOT, let me know about it by leaving a comment on this post! If you’ve got questions about SPOT, just ask… it’s not often I get behind a product but this one fills a large void and, all things considered, works very well.

On a side note, here are some pictures from my first flight as a licensed pilot. The brave souls who have now been branded Andrew’s first passengers are my father, sister and Leroi (LFC Hosting’s mascot!).

I’m still getting into this ‘blogging’ thing, but here’s a fun story to make anyone who may fly with me in the future a little more nervous than they undoubtedly already are.

Yesterday I arrived at the airport for my, now daily, flight training. I went in to the flight office, was told by my instructor that I was going to go solo today, and proceeded to sign out my plane, weight & balance, etc.

After my walk around and fuel checks I hopped in, started it up, and tuned the radio to listen to the ATIS report. All of the sudden a tremendous amount of static started coming through my headset, followed by an interesting light show performed by my audio panel. The audio panel, which is the panel where you select which radio’s and navigation equipment to use, lit up, start flashing, making noises, and failing to respond to any input from me. I fiddled with it a bit, tried to get it under control, but after about ten minutes gave up, shut the plane down, and walked back to the flight office to report the issue. I stayed at the airport for about another 40 minutes explaining the issue to the on-site repair personnel and assisting with further testing. As it turns out, they had to remove the audio panel from the aircraft and send it away to get looked at.

On the upside I can be happy the failure didn’t occur in the air as dealing with a communication failure in the circuit doesn’t really appeal to me. On the down side, it looks like my aircraft is going to be out of service for awhile.

All in all, it’s these experiences that create memories and add to my ongoing list of reasons I love to fly!