Originally written on Sunday, 26. August 2007.
Over the last few years I have flown quite a bit. Not always to the ends of the earth, not always to the most exotic of locations and not always for the longest flights, but there have been a few flights, with a few different airlines, to and from different locations.
So, in the same ‘occasional vein’ in which I write my Food on the Hoof diatribe [basically when I can be bothered!] I decided to write a few words about the joys of flying, the airport experience [not strictly speaking the remit of an airline, but there you go] the flight itself and value for money but with particular emphasis on a pet subject of mine, food.
Over the last few years I have flown with [in no particular order] BA, KLM, Air France, Lufthansa, Air Austria, My Travel, Libyan Airlines, Tunis Air and SAS. So where to start? Geographically, Dublin is my ‘home airport’ as it were, so lets start there shall we.
Basically, if you want to fly in and out of Dublin there is a duopoly with Ryan Air and Aerlingus, one being a ‘low cost’ airline, the second being the former State run airline of the Irish government which was recently floated on the stock market to try and compete both with Ryan Air and the main flag carriers in the long haul market, such as BA and the larger American airlines.
Ryan Air are one of those airlines that, first of all, don’t go to where you want to go, but fly to near where you need to be. As an example if you take a flight to Düsseldorf, you will actually end up at Niederrhein, some 42 miles from the place you thought you were going.
Ryan Air have an interesting business model which relies on charging customers for everything, such as having a nominated seat, checking in a bag, being charged for security check in, and of course food and drink. Actually, this is not 100% accurate as Ryan do not have nominated seats, it is simply a first come first served arrangement on the plane.
As a result, this engenders the lowest common denominator of social and civil morays. Passengers will run to the plane, pushing and shoving others out of the way in order to get the ‘plum’ seats near the emergency exits or the front rows.
One wonders what is is that Ryan Air are not able to do but everyone else is capable of when Ryan Air are pretty much the only airline that will not allocate seating to its passengers.
Aer Lingus, in their determination not to be swallowed whole are following in the footsteps of their less illustrious cousins are following the same charging model of Ryan Air. There are, currently, still two differences between the two. Actually, three. The first is that Aer Lingus do allow nominated seat allocation. This is important. Most people do not really care where they sit on a plane, just that they know where they are sitting and, more often than not, that they are sitting with their friends and family with whom they are traveling.
The second difference, at least right now, is that Aer Lingus do not charge you for checking in. Checking in is a legal security requirement and for Ryan Air to charge a passenger for completing basic security checks, frankly, shows more face than Janus. And for any customer who chooses to fly with Ryan Air and therefore submit to Ryan Air’s fanciful charging policy is paying money for Ryan Air completing their security requirements AND is paying Ryan Air for doing their own job.
The third difference between the two however is that Ryan Air have been found guilty of lying on numerous occasions. They have lied about their prices, more than once, they have been found guilty of lying about their carbon emissions and they have been found guilty of lying about their flight destinations, again more than once.
Ryan Air Lie about Eurostar and about the price as well, Ryan Air found guilty of illegal subsidies , Ryan Air lie about air pollution and Ryan Air lie about where they fly to
However, back on track, how do Aer Lingus and Ryan Air rate over all, including the food issues. In one way, it is hard to judge objectively. Aer Lingus do offer food in flight, albeit food which is hideously over priced. £5.00 for a sandwich, for example. Even the most ‘exotic’ of Pret A Manger’s are less than that, and Pret do make good sandwichs. The other thing is that, if you are vegetarian, the choice is, er, cheese.
So, for Ryan Air, the Piloti Plane Rating is zero from 5.
Aer Lingus get 1, simply because they do let you actually know which seat you’re getting on the flight.
More later.
Mark Daniels 