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DoChara's Ireland Blog
Random Writings about Ireland and the Irish
Wednesday
April 18 2007
Cheaper Transatlantic Flights to Ireland
When Ryanair express their intention to enter any market, the incumbants had better sit up and listen. Over the last 10 years their no-frills bargain flights, mainly to secondary airports, have seen them grow from a small regional airline to one of Europe's largest.
It is now commonplace for them to advertise flights for as little as €1 between European destinations, albeit that by the time their imaginative range of extra charges are added on the price is likely to be nearer to €35.
Still, I remember paying over £200 to fly to London in the mid-eighties, the equivalent of more than €250 (not counting inflation), an unthinkable price in the post-Ryanair era.
Variously described as flamboyant and straight talking or arrogant and unpleasant, Ryanair chief executive, Micheal O'Leary is renowned for his ability to garner publicity and for getting up the noses of both rival airline operators and airport authorities.
His expletive laden put-downs of his rivals are legendary - his comments when about to enter the German market are fairly typical:
"Weber [chairman of Luftansa] says Germans don't like low fares. How the f*** does he know? He's never offered them any. The Germans will crawl b******-naked over broken glass to get them."
Well, not quite perhaps, but the Ryanair German/Austrian network now includes 12 airports, 88 routes and will carry 8 million passengers in 2007.
When O'Leary says he will introduce $12 flights (and no, I have not left out a zero!) from the USA to Europe he certainly means it. It won't happen until after the Open Skies Agreement comes into force in 2008, but once it does you can expect him to be in there and fighting for a large chunk of the discount market.
Don't expect any frills though - even a cup of coffee on board is expensive and it isn't unusual to see passengers lining up for their flights with a packed lunch among their carry-on luggage.
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