Trapped in Dublin

Are they trying to trap us here?

First the security chimps at Dublin airport go on an unofficial work to rule, preventing nearly 100 passengers from getting to their flights before they departed.

Then the main train line to the North mysteriously falls into the sea.

And there is a strike on at Dublin Port that could start affecting passenger ferries at any time.

Already it costs money to leave Dublin via motorway, and of course, with the Greens in government, that will keep rising.

Are they trying to stop us from leaving so that we'll be forced to pay their preposterous new taxes in the Autumn?

Mystic Skinner foresees again

You thought I'd forgotten, didn't you?

There I was, getting all carried away with my new Axis of Evil. I'd gone and forgotten to make my 2009 predictions. Nope. I hadn't. It's just that they're so depressing I was in two minds about posting them.

Make no mistake, this isn't going to be the best year for the vast majority of people on the planet. There will be economic upheaval, recession, war, famine, epidemics, poverty and the continued denial of human rights and democracy.

But specifics. You want specifics, right? Okay.

1. A severe crash in the housing market of Britain and Ireland, even worse than what's already occurred. The governments forced to intervene with banks to prevent massive scale repossessions and defaults.

2. The credit card lifestyle bill finally lands on the mat. Plenty of people with no assets other than a few payments on a 08-D car are going to find themselves defaulting on some very expensive credit loans. The problem of arranging refinancing, from semi-bankrupt banks who themselves cannot get credit, for these unsupported loans is going to stretch the banking sector beyond breaking point.

3. Multinationals use the excuse of recession to relocate to Eastern Europe. Cue 100,000 redundancies next year in Ireland.

4. Euro or no euro (and given that 40% of our trade is with the sterling zone even today, the euro is not currently helping), we might actually have to call in the IMF if the government cannot raise the funds to deal with their income shortfall AND that of the banks, especially if the credit card bill arrives too.

5. Empty shopfronts in high streets. Cars with for sale signs. Travel agents, estate agents, motor retailers all going bust.

6. A general election in Ireland after either the Greens grow stones and pull out of Government or they lose a crucial Dail vote, an election which Fianna Fail lose quite significantly to a Fine Gael-Labour coalition.

7. Obama's Clinton re-run presidency gets off to a poor start with a series of foreign affairs crises that even Bill and Hill can't solve for the noobie. For potential flashpoints, think Pakistan, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, Indonesia and as usual most of Africa.

8. Britain definitely starts pulling out of their occupations. Troops to start leaving Iraq and Afghanistan. As recession bites, there will be a further round of culls in the Northern Irish public service sector.

9. Chelsea for the league, with Liverpool nipping their heels in second. United a distant third. Fergie to quit at long last. Perhaps Wenger to join him in walking from the Premiership.

10. The beginning of the end of low cost air travel. As airlines consolidate, and routes decrease, and more and more craft are parked in the Nevada desert, the consumer ends up with the worst of all worlds - prices like the luxury days of the 1970s with service of contemporary Ryanair.

A fright with every flight

Sky News (same three headline stories every five minutes) was running a story about another travel agent collapse on heavy rotation this morning.

XL are apparently Britain's third largest travel agent. They have thousands of Irish customers too.

I'd rather leave it to experts within the travel industry to debate the effects of the credit crunch, or fuel prices, or the global economic downturn, or environmental concerns upon their industrial sector.

I do have sympathy for the customers stranded abroad today, and especially for the staff, who found out they'd lost their jobs when they turned on the news this morning, having heard nothing from the craven management whose decision-making led to this demise.

But it seems to me that something a little more profound has taken place than just corporate cocking-up.

This collapse, like those that preceded it and those that will follow it, like the consolidation of the airlines (BA and American Airlines look like the latest to buddy up in the ongoing turbulence of the travel sector), has to do with the democratisation of travel.

In short, this is a victory for the internet. The web's ability to put a vendor anywhere in touch with a potential market of the whole (online) world was inevitably going to lead to professional middlemen losing their jobs.

They're losing their jobs because people no longer need their services (except for special circumstances where professional planning assistance is useful to help organise complex travel arrangements).

They're losing their jobs because people can tell a good deal from a bad one simply by scouring some aggregator and price comparison sites online. The global market drove prices down.

But markets overshoot. And the Ryanair effect of no-frills, no-comfort, no-rights flights is for many people a discomfort too far.

I've discussed the Ryanair effect before on this blog, especially their contempt for customers, their maniacal chairman, their bullshit additional charges that add up to multiples of the advertised price of the flight, and their sense of social responsibility to the disabled.

But the Ryanair effect has pressured prices and practices of other airlines downwards too. And this is what is leading to the streamlining of the industry, as the last fat is burnt off the former national flagship airlines, but as also standards are cut to the bone in emulation of the Ryanair model.

The position of equilibrium for consumers is a happy medium between price and service. Unfortunately, as yesterday's latest Ryanscare emergency at Dublin airport demonstrated, Ryanscare standards of care and service are not sufficient.

We don't want a fright with every flight. We don't want the Seventies back either, when it cost a month's wages to fly one-way to London, but you got lovely meals and could smoke and flirt with the trolley dollies.

We want to be able to travel in a modicum of comfort, at a commensurate price set by a competitive market, in stringently monitored safety standards.

On Icarus' wings

Ever get the feeling that air travel is becoming impossible?

I don't mean that the physics underpinning flight has been found false. To my knowledge, planes do still take off.

But in recent years, air travel has come a long way from the luxurious pampering and glamour which it was known for in the Sixties and Seventies.

These days, Ryanair flights resemble cattle trucks, with the lame and the disabled abandoned on the tarmac as the other passengers scramble into the world's least comfortable space for a seat.

Other airlines are little different, and totally indifferent to the cares of customers as a recent run-in I had with allegedly decent airline Qantas revealed. (The allegation about Qantas being decent is one I can happily refute, incidentally.)

But now I get the impression that politicians are joining the airlines in making air travel almost impossible.

First the European Parliament decides to levy Green, 'Save the Planet', 'combat carbon emissions' charges upon air travel. In other words, their solution to climate change is that they're going to tax us.

That warped gnome Michael O'Leary warns that this could cost at least 50 euro on every ticket. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as he'll hike tickets at least that much and blame the Eurocrats, no matter what slice they carve off for themselves.

Then that bastion of democracy, the United States Department of Homeland Security, reveals that they want to replace air tickets and boarding passes with electric-shock bracelets, designed to torture any traveller at the press of a button.

For a lot of reasons, it looks like we're entering the endgame of the air travel era for the normal person.

Lack of fuel isn't one of those reasons (an excuse, but not a causal reason). The combination of shit service, prices hiked by state, superstate and providers, and finally conditions which now approach actual torture are the real reasons why we're going to start turning our backs on flight.

Which of course is going to make life interesting for anyone living on an unconnected island in the Atlantic.

Ryanair are thieving scumbags

We all know that Michael O'Leary's reign of terror has led to a complete breakdown in the concept of customer service in air travel.

Ryanair's business model includes cramming so many seats on a plane as to make them utterly uncomfortable for anyone but a midget to sit in. It also involves charging people extortionate taxes and additional levies for 'luxury extras' like baggage and wheelchairs.

They are known in the aviation industry as 'Ryanscare - a fright with every flight' for their fast and loose attitudes to safety procedures during their terrifyingly short turnarounds at poorly equipped regional airports.

And their policy of blaring adverts for crap like scratchcards during red-eye flights is definitely going to result in some sleep-deprived passenger assaulting staff one of these days.

But their latest wheeze is an attempt to steal money which they are not authorised to take from their own customers.

Ryanair have sent out an email to any customers who booked a flight out of the UK before the 7th of December for travel after the 1st of February this year. I've included its full text below.

Basically, because Gordon Brown doubled UK Air Passenger Duty in the last budget, Ryanair are now attempting to levy a further unauthorised charge on these customers.

I booked and paid for such a flight. But now, because Ryanair's business environment was changed in the budget, they want to try and up the price of my flight. Sorry, O'Leary, you thieving scumbag, but we had a deal. You offered a price and I took it.

Just because your business climate changes doesn't give you the right to renege on an agreed price and levy further charges at a later date.

My credit card company has been warned to reject any attempt by you to take any further payment from me for my flight. And if you attempt to do so, I'll be in touch with the Consumer Association and my lawyer.

I urge anyone else who received a similar email to behave likewise.

Here's the text:

Dear Customer,

In his budget speech on 6th December 2006, the UK Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown MP, announced his decision to DOUBLE “UK Air Passenger Duty”. This tax grab which is applicable to every passenger departing from a UK airport will generate £1bn. in tax revenues for the UK Government, but will do nothing for the environment.

Unfortunately, as you booked your flight - confirmation number DELETED before the 7th December 2006 with a travel date after the 1st February 2007 (see the below flight details), we have no alternative, in this instance, but to act as the UK Chancellor’s tax collector.

In accordance, with Article 4.2.2 of Ryanair’s General Conditions of Carriage, the additional tax amount required by the UK government will automatically be charged to the credit card or debit card used to pay for this flight booking. These credit/debit card transactions will automatically take place over the next 2 weeks

UK Air Passenger Duty Rates – applicable per person for each departing flight from a UK airport which was booked before the 7th December 2006 for travel from the 1st February 2007 onwards.

£10*(GBP) per person for each UK domestic flight (£20 on a return UK domestic flight)
£10* (GBP) per person for flights from the UK to an EU/EEA airport
£40* (GBP) per person for flights from the UK to an airport outside the EU/EEA – e.g. Morocco

*or local currency equivalent

Ryanair condemns the UK Chancellor’s unfair and regressive tax on ordinary passengers. And we urge you to write to Gordon Brown MP at ministers@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk indicating your opposition to this tax grab which will generate £1bn. in tax revenues for the UK Government, but will not do nothing for the environment.

Child-free aviation

As my first flight of the year approaches, I am filled with trepidation at hurling myself into the pit of contemporary human misery that is air travel today.

Nothing can ever habituate you to the squalid overcrowding of Dublin airport, the terrorist frisk-downs at destination airports on arrival and on return, or to the contemptible service standards of certain low-cost airlines, where everything has a price and the customer has no value whatsoever.

But I could, with the assistance of prescription pharmaceuticals, somehow manage to handle all of the above if only someone in the aviation industry would hear my plea and provide child-free flights.

There has been reports that a smoking airline might be about to set up in business. But frankly, and I speak as a smoker here, that idea is really pretty disgusting in the context of recycled air.

That's not what the customer wants or needs. We would like to be treated like human beings, and at least in my case, we would welcome the offer, even if we had to pay a little extra, to fly without the accompaniment of colicky newborns and their sleep-deprived, frazzled parents, especially on long-haul flights.

Next week, I have a short hop. Even if I get allocated next to a mewling, puking brat, I can flee their presence within a couple of hours.

But later in the year, I may be flying much further afield. And no amount of tranquilisers, airport bar gin and tonics, or over the counter sleeping tablets will be able to take the edge off the shrill caterwaul of someone else's infant for hours on end at 40,000 feet.

The O'Leary's and Willie Walshes of this world are supposedly innovating air travel daily, constantly seeking to open up new opportunities for diversifying airline income.

Well, if they value making an extra few quid, let someone speculate on raising prices on long-haul flights that are guaranteed over-twelves only?

I appreciate that sometimes people HAVE to travel. Granny's funeral and so on. But surely it is always possible not to mention preferable to leave a young infant behind? Even older children do not enjoy hours on end stuck in a seat in a cramped jet airliner.

So if it is Granny's funeral, and you can prove it, then alright, take the child with you. But won't someone give me the option of catching the next, child-free, flight too?

And if it's not Granny's funeral, then please, leave your rugrats at home with someone, or better still, holiday locally. It's better for the environment, better for your stress levels and better for the general sanity of the rest of us who didn't volunteer to bear witness to your offspring's marathon ability to tantrum.

Bill Hicks was right. But then again he usually is...