No-Frills Service Links London, Frankfurt

<B> No-Frills Service Links London, Frankfurt</B>

By Amon Cohen

Europe's two major financial centers, London and Frankfurt, are to be linked for the first time by a no-frills air service. Ryanair is launching flights from London Stansted to the previously unknown Hahn Airport on April 22. An unrestricted midweek return from Stansted costs $288, compared with $589 on British Airways and Lufthansa, or $536 with British Midland.

However, there are undoubted disadvantages to the new route. Hahn is a 40-minute bus ride from downtown Frankfurt. Frankfurt International Airport, which is served by the other three carriers, is six miles and 20 minutes by cab or 12 minutes by train from downtown. Furthermore, Ryanair will fly its route only three times per day, while there are around 20 daily flights from Heathrow for those with interlineable tickets. These drawbacks mean the route may well appeal more to small businesses than to major corporations.

"I don't see many of our people here going for it," said the travel manager at one of the world's largest accounting firms. "Time is money here and when you have partners charging out per hour there is not much point in their using a service like this to save on the airfare. Not many people at our firm use the no-frills airlines."

The new route also met with a lukewarm response from David Giles, managing director of Amersham Travel Management and deputy chairman of the U.K.'s Guild of Business Travel Agents. "Our clients often look for convenience rather than the cheapest rate," he said. "In any case, a lot of our clients are getting around the expensive fares by booking back-to-back tickets."

Unlike in the United States (<I>BTN,</I> Sept. 15, 1997), back-to-back tickets are perfectly legitimate in Europe and are encouraged as a ticketing strategy by some carriers. Giles said he has seen growing demand from clients as well, another change in the distribution network that is leading him to consider introducing transaction pricing, since back-to-backs involve more work.

Ryanair will launch service from Stansted to Ancona, Biarritz, Dinard, Genoa and Turin beginning in May. The Irish carrier is one of few airlines to take advantage of EU deregulation by operating routes outside its home country. Its 21-aircraft fleet flies to several other destinations from Stansted, as well as London's Luton airport, Dublin and other smaller cities in Ireland.