A Civil Aviation Authority (UK) study found out that passenger numbers from the UK to European destinations would have risen substantially even without the advent of the low-cost carriers (LCCs).

Contrary to the commonly held perceptions, the "no-frills" carriers have not caused any significant growth in intra-European air travel. There would have been the same number of passenger kilometres anyway, according to the study.

What actually happened during the last decade was a growth in all three airline sectors. This includes the full-service legacy airlines, the charter airlines and LCCs. CAA explains that this and earlier studies have found that passenger air travel rises in line with incomes more closely than any other indicator. Variations in ticket prices have a lesser influence than is normally assumed because air fares - especially low ones - are a relatively small proportion of the total trip cost for almost all business and leisure travellers.

It is evident that when LCCs steadily grew their air travel market, a shift or substitution of the airline sector occurred - at the expense of charter travel market not of the legacy carrier like British Airways.

Meanwhile, the LCCs' way of operating has had an enormous influence on the way business is done in the UK-European marketplace, forcing the whole short-haul sector to move its products and cost bases closer to the no-frills model, or even adopt it, the study points out.

Another dramatic change wrought by the LCCs resulted in an increase in a variety of point-to-point services and frequencies, to the benefit of provincial, old military air fields or secondary destinations, as well as to secondary airports at major hubs.

Another non-intuitive result the CAA has discovered is that "there is little evidence of any marked change in the income and socio-economic profile of air passengers" since the LCCs entered the marketplace.

Specifically, it says: "No-frills carriers seem more able to attract leisure passengers of similar income levels to those flying on full-service airlines, but it seems harder for them to do the same for business passengers". One factor is probably the fact that the full-fare carriers serve the major business hubs via the primary airports. Surely, the airline industry is far more competitive than at the start of the decade! I hope that the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, and hotel owners in particular, take heed of such studies. Their obsession for "low cost at all costs" (with regards to airlines) is not the attitude!