The Great Holiday Rip Off
The Great Holiday Rip Off
As soon as passengers arrive at an airport they become helpless prisoners – to be exploited and abused at every turn.
No great surprise then to learn this week that Belfast International Airport intends to charge drivers £1 for setting down and picking up at its new drop off zone.
The International Airport which is owned by the Spanish company Abertis carried 5.2 million passengers in 2008. You do not have to be a genius to work out that this charge will bring in significant new revenues and doubtless Abertis shareholders are delighted at such a cunning wheeze. .
But for many passengers this will be the last straw. The International is a grim and depressing place at the best of times. Travelling through it is never the best way to start a holiday, and as a gateway for visitors to Northern Ireland it is something of an embarrassment.
Granted there are improvements underway – the airport ‘s propaganda claims that the new concourse it is building will be big enough to host a five a side football match. And there’ll be plenty of new shops. Which is terrific. Doubtless all of them will offer the very best value for money.
Yet I suspect that consumers have had enough of the crude exploitation that this ridiculous new charge represents – and that many in future years will vote with their feet. After all Dublin Airport which serves more destinations is only 100 miles away.
And the vastly superior City Airport has managed significant improvements without introducing such a charge.
But management at the International are total beginners at consumer exploitation compared to the great master of the art Michael O’Leary at Ryanair.
His passengers are already facing a £1 charge for going to the toilet on his planes to be introduced next year (I dread to think what might happen to someone with a medical condition and no money)
He’s just introduced a “big baggage” charge which will mean people paying up to £80 to check in a suitcase.
But his latest plan is even more extraordinary.
The plan is to rip out the back ten rows of 250 of his planes and replace them with 15 rows of “vertical seating”..
And, here’s where it gets even cleverer, because less people would be using the toilets, they will remove two lavatories at the back, helping to squeeze in 50 more passengers.
Instead of being allocated a seat, Ryanair travellers would perch on a narrow shelf and lean against a flat padded backboard.
They would be restrained with a strap stretching over their shoulder. Whilst this would at least have the advantage of preventing passengers from having to sit in somebody else’s vomit, surely this time O’Leary has gone too far.
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