Aer Lingus Keeping the Celtic Tiger on Life Support

This would be ideal for lowering the fares in May...

When people expected Christoph Mueller to bring a Germanic influence to Aer Lingus when he was appointed CEO last year they probably weren't expecting him to bring something akin to the German hyperinflation of 1923.

I was looking at taking day trip to Manchester from Dublin and almost choked when I saw the fare quoted by Aer Lingus. €370.99 for the flights I wanted to take! That’s equal to €0.70 per kilometre. Applying this rate would mean a fare of €23,822 for Heathrow to Sydney. Unrealistic comparison? Yes, but hey this one of those pointless blogs where the author rambles on about anything!

The piece de resistance of this booking is the good people at Aer Lingus have put a star beside the €194.99 fare on the return leg from Manchester to tell you that there are just three seats remaining at that fare - as if you are supposed to feel luckier than when Charlie Bucket unwrapped a chocolate bar to discover he had won a golden ticket. Oh and the figure shown above doesn’t include the spurious €10 “handling fee” that comes with the booking.

So what is the reason for this madness? Well, it’s the last day of the English Premier League and Manchester United are playing a home game. It’s unbelievable that there are people out there willing to pay that sort of fare but there’s obviously life in the comatose Celtic Tiger yet. As for me I would rather fly to Liverpool on Ryanair for a third of the price or go retro and take the ferry for even less still. Or for just an additional €51 you could fly with Delta to JFK.

Spirit Airlines - Graduates of the Ryanair Nickel and Dime College

LCC typically stands for low cost carrier but it seems let's cripple customers has become more appropriate.

Spirit Airlines is an airline I have never flown and one I am now less likely than ever to fly. This is an airline that has decided to introduce charges of up to $45 for putting carry-on baggage in the overhead bins. It looks like Spirit are out-Ryanairing Ryanair.

It is possible to avoid the carry-on charge by placing the item of baggage underneath the seat in front. However, as someone who is relatively tall this is not something I would normally do due to the lack of legroom. I can understand why some baggage should be checked in rather than carried on (e.g. liquids, size, weight, etc) but I fail to see what stowing a bag under the seat in front instead of in the overhead bin achieves. Yes, the overhead bins can be crammed like crazy on some flights but if this is an effort to police that then the most practical way to tackle the problem is to just take oversized bags off passengers at the boarding gate. But sadly it's just another $cheme dreamed up at HQ to nickel and dime passengers - if they have any nickels or dimes left after all the other charges.

Meanwhile in Europe, Ryanair are hiking up checked baggage fees from €15 to €20 for July and August. That should nicely rip off families and other folks heading off on their summer holidays. As if the "per person" credit card fee wasn't ridiculous enough. Of course the attitude of most Ryanair supporters is "if you don't like it then fly someone else". Obviously the charm of Mr O'Leary inspires the faithful!

Everybody to their cars, boats and trains!