Ryanairs hit at Aer lingus over e5 Business class seats.

Run_to_da_hills

Funny to get Ryanair taking the pi**s out of Aerlingus for offering e5 bogus airfares to New York. There is absolutely no comparison between a e5 euro Ryanair seat (Of which there is economy 189 seats on a Boeing 737 800) and a business class trans continental Aer Lingus seat. (Of which there is only 24 available on the Airbus A330) http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=apr&story=pro-en-170408

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1013341.shtml

IRLConor

Personally if I had the power to do so I'd do them all for not advertising "all-in" prices. I'm almost OK with them excluding discretionary stuff like baggage charges but as far as I'm concerned, if it says "€1 flights to London" I want to be able to hand over nothing more than €1 and get to London.

What they're doing is grossly misleading advertising. I don't think anyone is fooled into thinking that they'll only pay €1 for a "€1" flight but they're deliberately making it difficult to compare fares across airlines. Surely that's in breach of some consumer protection/truth in advertising/anti-competitiveness laws?

Run_to_da_hills

Ryanair has asked Aer lingus to honour the seats. EAsy for them to say.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0418/aerlingus.html

peter1892

It's a publicity stunt by Ryanair. I don't like them, I really don't ever want to fly with them again, but I can't help but (grudgingly) admire their 'brass-neck' in getting some attention in all this.

FlutterinBantam

Predictable and boring really.

Will make EI more attentive in future I would say,which is not a bad thing.

masseyno9

IRLConor wrote: »

Personally if I had the power to do so I'd do them all for not advertising "all-in" prices. I'm almost OK with them excluding discretionary stuff like baggage charges but as far as I'm concerned, if it says "€1 flights to London" I want to be able to hand over nothing more than €1 and get to London.

What they're doing is grossly misleading advertising. I don't think anyone is fooled into thinking that they'll only pay €1 for a "€1" flight but they're deliberately making it difficult to compare fares across airlines. Surely that's in breach of some consumer protection/truth in advertising/anti-competitiveness laws?

How is it that difficult? I've flown a good bit in the past while and found it pretty easy to compare. Just check a few more websites and click a few more buttons to get a total price. And infact sometimes you can get to london for €1 or 1c even. Ryanair do certain no taxes or charges promotions and if you fly at the right time you CAN get to your destination for that price, if you don't check in a bag, and if you use online check in.

Most of the time, Ryanair are still cheaper than competitors, even factoring in the 'added extras.' You want to go to London for €1...you do realise you wouldn't get a bus from dublin city to a suburb for that much. If and when ryanair operate these kind of sales, they're operating at a loss to gain positive publicity. The fact of the matter is, you cant blame ryanair for quoting €1 flights, if they are only on the less than prime-time flights. Its similar to going into a shop that has massive signs outside saying 50% off, and then in tiny writing in the corner it says 'selected items.'

I'd love to go to London for €1 too but I know its unlikely to happen unless i go at an off-peak time.

There's nothing wrong with advertising €1 flights, but don't get your knickers in a twist because they're not the flights you want to book.

IRLConor

masseyno9 wrote: »

How is it that difficult? I've flown a good bit in the past while and found it pretty easy to compare. Just check a few more websites and click a few more buttons to get a total price. And infact sometimes you can get to london for €1 or 1c even. Ryanair do certain no taxes or charges promotions and if you fly at the right time you CAN get to your destination for that price, if you don't check in a bag, and if you use online check in.

Most of the time, Ryanair are still cheaper than competitors, even factoring in the 'added extras.' You want to go to London for €1...you do realise you wouldn't get a bus from dublin city to a suburb for that much. If and when ryanair operate these kind of sales, they're operating at a loss to gain positive publicity. The fact of the matter is, you cant blame ryanair for quoting €1 flights, if they are only on the less than prime-time flights. Its similar to going into a shop that has massive signs outside saying 50% off, and then in tiny writing in the corner it says 'selected items.'

I'd love to go to London for €1 too but I know its unlikely to happen unless i go at an off-peak time.

There's nothing wrong with advertising €1 flights, but don't get your knickers in a twist because they're not the flights you want to book.

I'm not saying that I want €1 flights (although they are nice), I know it's an unreasonably low price. What I do want is that the "headline price" is the bottom line price.

I'm perfectly OK with paying the full, real fares. I just shouldn't have to do a bunch of dummy bookings to find out the real prices.

The shops with "50% off*" and "*selected items" should also get a booting IMO.

masseyno9

I accept your point, but you can't expect them not to advertise their lowest fare.
Imagine you're in charge of selling a week worth of flights from dublin to London and return. Things like sunday afternoon/eve flights either way would be the most expensive due to people needing to be home for work on Mon morning, and also wanting to extend their wkend get-away as long as possible. Flights up until Wed or Thurs will be cheapest as there's less demand. Thurs and fri (evenings esp.) will be on a par with the Sunday ones. Saturday might be on a par with these too.

This is starting to get into it a bit much, but i think i've explained it in a decent enough way. Cheap seats on the low-demand flights to entice people to fly when maybe they wouldn't if the seats were all the same price. Thus allowing them to sell more seats (and make more money) overall.

Now, having set your week's seat fares, how will you advertise them. Will you say

"Fly at crap midweek times for just €1 and €65 at the weekend!"

Of course you wouldn't, because it would be ridiculous. People wouldn't even bother to visit your site. I've never had an issue with Ryanair, except for the gaudy yellow interior, but if you're careful about booking, you can get decent deals.

Its common knowledge that €1 seats can only be had within a decent set of criteria, and if you spend 30 mins on the web, you can find them (plus, it feels like you earned them!!), so I don't think Ryanair are at fault at all.

EDIT: I'd love to go on the apprentice!!

Onikage

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Ryanair has asked Aer lingus to honour the seats. EAsy for them to say.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0418/aerlingus.html

I don't see Ryanair offering €5 flights to the US.

IRLConor

masseyno9 wrote: »

I accept your point, but you can't expect them not to advertise their lowest fare.
Imagine you're in charge of selling a week worth of flights from dublin to London and return. Things like sunday afternoon/eve flights either way would be the most expensive due to people needing to be home for work on Mon morning, and also wanting to extend their wkend get-away as long as possible. Flights up until Wed or Thurs will be cheapest as there's less demand. Thurs and fri (evenings esp.) will be on a par with the Sunday ones. Saturday might be on a par with these too.

This is starting to get into it a bit much, but i think i've explained it in a decent enough way. Cheap seats on the low-demand flights to entice people to fly when maybe they wouldn't if the seats were all the same price. Thus allowing them to sell more seats (and make more money) overall.

Now, having set your week's seat fares, how will you advertise them. Will you say

"Fly at crap midweek times for just €1 and €65 at the weekend!"

Of course you wouldn't, because it would be ridiculous. People wouldn't even bother to visit your site. I've never had an issue with Ryanair, except for the gaudy yellow interior, but if you're careful about booking, you can get decent deals.

Its common knowledge that €1 seats can only be had within a decent set of criteria, and if you spend 30 mins on the web, you can find them (plus, it feels like you earned them!!), so I don't think Ryanair are at fault at all.

EDIT: I'd love to go on the apprentice!!

You're not getting my point. I'm not arguing against price differentiation across days, flights or even within flights. That's all reasonable business practice.

I'm arguing that since taxes and charges are mandatory they should be forced to include them in the price if they aren't subsidising them themselves.

If they say "Flights on Tuesday start from €5" then there should be at least one seat on one flight on Tuesday which you do not have to pay more than €5 to get to the destination.

If they say "Flights on Tuesday start from €5" and then when you pick the €5 flight they throw on €30 in taxes and charges then that's not cool.

Imagine you went into a shop and picked up a pint of milk labelled €0.50 and when you got to the till they slapped on a "till charge" of €1 making your milk €1.50. The shop next door has milk for €0.55 and a "till charge" of €0.90. How do you know what your milk is going to cost unless you go to the till in both shops and then back out on at least one of them? Why should the customer have to do that?

Run_to_da_hills

I believe Aer Lingus can now start selling premium class translantic flights to New York for e5