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.