Low-Cost Carriers: Citilink vs Lion Air vs Air Asia

The face of airlines industry has been changing since the invention of the low cost carriers (LCC) during the last decade. Apparently, airplane that used to be closely associated with transportation mode subjected only to certain part of society has changed. Compared to other modes such as bus, ship, travel, and train, airplane ticket used to be the most expensive. This condition then leads to the assumption that airplane ticket is almost inaccessible for the whole part of society. However, the invention of low cost carriers changes the landscape significantly. As low cost carriers are offering cheaper ticket, almost every part of our today’s society can afford it. If you are lucky enough, you can even have the airplane ticket in promotional tariff which maybe even cheaper than the tariff of train.

The popularity of low cost carriers happened as well in Indonesia. At least, there are three popular low cost airlines that well operate such as Indonesian low-cost carrier Lion Air, Garuda Indonesia’s subsidiary Citilink, and Malaysian low-cost carrier Air Asia. These airlines are famous due to their competitively affordable ticket price and often offer promotional programs. As the popularity of low cost carriers are getting hype in Indonesia, we would like to compare their performance by asking our 359 respondents in nationwide.

The first procedure we conducted on the survey was filtering our sample of respondents by asking whether they have the experience of flying. As the result, most of our respondents said so. 75% of them ever have the experience of flying, and 71% of those who ever flew also have the experience of flying with the low cost carriers as well.

To expand our understanding of respondents’ choice of using or not using the low cost carriers, we asked the 4% of respondents who never fly using the low cost carriers about their motives of flying with other airlines. First, 44% of respondents said that their preference of using any airlines but the low cost carriers were because they doubt of its safety. Second, the 17% of respondents said that the airport destination is unavailable in low cost carriers’ route. Third, the 17% of respondents also consider that the higher cost carrier is more prestigious compared to the three airlines. Fourth, 11% of respondents consider that the flight schedules offered by the three airlines are uncomfortable. Fifth, 11% respondents also decided for not using the low cost carriers due to the airlines are considered as often delayed.

After finding the insight of our respondents who never fly with low-cost airlines, we then asked our respondents who have the experience of flying with low cost carriers. Among the three airlines, Lion Air was the most mentioned as 44% respondents said they have the experience of flying with it. Air Asia stay at the second most mentioned as 30% respondents ever flew with it. At the last position, 26% respondents said that they ever have the experience of flying with Citilink.

According to the respondents’ motives of flying with low-cost carriers, we found four answers mentioned by them. Among all the answers, the cheaper tariff offered by the three low-budget airlines become their main motive as well as mentioned by 47% respondents. Morover, 30% of respondents consider that the three airlines offer many promotional programs. Different answer were also be found among 16% of respondents who said that Citilink, Lion Air, and Air Asia offer comfortable flight schedule. At the last position, 7% of respondents chose the airlines since their airport destination were offered only by these airlines.

As respondents once said that the cheaper tariff became their main motive of flying with low-cost carriers, we asked them whether they would like to switch to the more premium airlines if the difference tariff was relatively low. Apparently, respondents’ loyalty toward low-cost carriers still low. 76% of respondents said that they would like to switch their flight to the premium airlines if the difference tariff between the low and premium one was only less than IDR 200K.

Comparing the low-cost carriers from several aspects would be done to see the competitive advantage of each airline. At first, we would like to compare the cheapest tariff among the three low-budget airlines. Apparently, Air Asia is staying over the top as 50% of respondents said that it offers cheapest tariff among all.

Other aspect we would like to compare was the safety of the airlines. Comparing the three low-cost carriers, Citilink was considered by 68% of respondents as the safest low-cost carriers. However, according to this finding, Citilink was excelling than Air Asia that only mentioned by 39% of respondents as well as Lion Air that only mentioned by 13% of respondents.

The last aspect we would like to compare was airlines’ discipline of flight schedule. Among the three airlines, Citilink was mentioned as the most on time low-budget airlines by 60% of respondents. This finding then followed by Air Asia as mentioned by 29% of respondents and Lion Air as mentioned by 11% of respondents.

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below (bahasa). JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographic segment preference on each answer.