Tag Archives: Easyjet

7 Ways to Beat Air Passenger Duty Rises

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    Yesterday, Air Passenger Duty on short haul flights went up by £1, but much larger increases were imposed on long haul and premium service flights. These taxes are set to rise again in November 2010 – and even if a change of government looks likely, there is little to suggest that the Tories will reverse this policy.

    This list was due for a little bit more embellishment, which I’ll try and get round to later in the week, but in the meantime, here are the key suggestions:

    1. Take a Private Jet – you will pay no taxes at all this way.
    2. Let Michael O’Leary pay your taxes – can’t afford a private jet? Look out for Ryanair’s special offers when they pay the taxes for you.
    3. Island hop around Scotland – ‘public service obligation’ flights in the Scottish Highlands & Islands are exempt from duty – and the views are simply stunning.
    4. Take the ferry or Eurostar to Paris or Amsterdam, and fly long haul from there – or even hop over to any European hub on a budget flight, and then continue from there. APD stings you much harder on long haul flights.
    5. Offset the tax by saving on duty free, or not paying other airline hidden charges – ok, so the government sees air passengers as an easy target. Chill out, and enjoy some savings on duty free. The best deals might be at your destination – shop around to see, but even though there aren’t any duty free allowances on short haul flights to EU destinations, these aren’t the ones with the highest taxes. Why not get the best of both worlds and fly via Switzerland or Norway – short haul destinations which also have a duty free allowance. If you don’t have a Visa Electron card by now, then you really can’t whinge about air passenger duty if you are booking flights with a low cost carrier like Easyjet or Ryanair. The taxes aren’t usually avoidable, but the card handling fees always are.
    6. Go all the way by train- this is easier than you might think, and thanks to the new Eurostar links to the continent, you’d be amazed how far you can get in a day from London – and think how much more you see on the way. Don’t fancy a long journey home by train? At least the return flight won’t be taxed so badly, as APD is only levied on the outbound journey – Alistair hasn’t thought out a way of taxing people to come in to the UK yet, but don’t encourage him too much!
    7. Take the ferry to Morocco (from Gibraltar) – ok, so the ferry fare will cost you about as much as the tax you will save, but Gibraltar is a great place to land, and why not add a ferry trip to your African adventure?

    Airlines put Heathrow’s Third Runway in the Dragon’s Den

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    And so to the final ‘dragon’ in my review of the arguments for and against Heathrow’s Third runway.

    If we just looked at the airlines serving Heathrow, then support for a third runway would be overwhelmingly positive. But no frills airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair, who are being asked to pay increased landing charges at Gatwick and Stansted in order to help fund Heathrow’s infrastructure improvements, are less keen. As I haven’t yet mentioned the alternative High Speed Rail, perhaps this is the place to consider what ‘rail based airlines’ might think.

    Heathrow’s existing Tennants

    British Airways are unsurprisingly the most vocal in favour of a third runway at Heathrow, as they already benefit from having a massive hub operation in Terminal 5, which they want to expand by having extra runway capacity. In terms of the environmental damage caused by airlines, BA boss Willie Walsh was in New York recently, arguing that airlines across the world could achieve a 50% reduction in CO2 emmissions by 2050 – but many environmentalists are cynical about the industry’s ability to meet such targets, and even those that believe they are achievable do not consider that a 50% reduction is enough. So how does this relate to Heathrow, which is after all, just one airport out of several thousands worldwide which operate passenger flights, albeit the busiest one in terms of international passengers? The current government have made reductions in CO2 emmissions part of the conditions which would have to be met in order for Heathrow to gain approval. Obviously, this is all immaterial if the Conservatives stick with their policy to block an additional runway at Heathrow, but as Willie Walsh argued on Questiontime back in January, politicians in opposition can always play a completely different role once the enter government. At last week’s CIMTIG meeting, BAA’s director for Runway 3 said that “Conservative policy is about going after easy votes. As a transport policy, it is indefensible.”

    Virgin meanwhile are pinning their environmental credentials on a massive investment of ‘all Virgin profits for the next 10 years’ in alternative fuels. Clearly both of these airlines believe that the aviation industry can still grow and cut emmissions at the same time. BMI also support a third runway, although speculation is that they will have been snapped up by one of their larger rivals by the time it gets built!

    Non Heathrow based airlines

    Ryanair in particular have launched legal challenges against BAA over the fees they are charged at Stansted, and have repeatedly refused to pay passenger handling bills, as they claim they are being forced to payin advance for infrastructure which they will never actually use.

    High Speed Rail as an Alternative

    The Conservatives have said that they will spend £20 billion on a high speed rail line between London and Manchester, and that they will encourage more people to travel to Continental Europe by train, in order to reduce the demand for a third runway at Heathrow. However, as BAA management have pointed out, offering easier rail access to Heathrow will only end up making it far more attractive for customers from the North of England. Meanwhile, Eurostar already have a 75% market share for point to point travel between London and Paris and Brussels, so there is little that government policy could do to switch more people onto the trains, apart from ban these flights entirely – a move which would be very un-Conservative! Although there is potential to see Eurostar services extended to cities such as Cologne and Amsterdam, this is a commercial matter for Eurostar to decide, and there is very little that a UK government could do to influence this, when the track and station access needed to make this happen is in other EU countries.

    Verdict: Just as it goes without saying that most of Heathrow’s neighbours will be against further expansion, it can also be taken for granted that the main airlines using Heathrow would want to see it expand. But this misses out on the wider picture, especially as it is the no-frills airlines who are investing most heavily in new aircraft and new routes. It is therefore not a foregone conclusion to assume that the airline industry as a whole would say ‘we’re in’.

    Final score – some of the referee’s decisions may be controversial, but my verdict is 2-3 against.

    I’m waiting for my Electron Platinum Card

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    Reading through another airline forum, I have just seen another poster describe the Electron Debit Card, the budget flyer’s most flexible friend, as being ‘hard to get’.

    Nothing could be further from the truth! The Electron card was designed for people with little or no credit history, and as such can only be used in electronic terminals where authorisation is included with every transaction, so that the user does not become overdrawn. Naturally, this includes the online booking systems of the low cost airlines, who appreciate the lower handling charges this card attracts. Or, they just appreciate the opportunity to apply extra charges to everyone who doesn’t use an electron card – it doesn’t really matter which way you look at it, the fact is simple – if you want really cheap flights, you must have an Electron Card.

    A few years ago, I signed up to the American Express Platinum card, which claimed to offer all kinds of rewards to the frequent traveller. I found that I used very few of them, and when it came to claiming on their insurance, they were a total nightmare to deal with – but that piece of plastic certainly shined nicely in my wallet (and it stayed in good condition too, as so many retailers don’t take Amex).  The reality for me is that even though I do travel quite a bit through running this website, most of my flights are within Europe, and as I want to use my local airports as much as possible, most of my flights are from Birmingham or East Midlands, and they therefore tend to be with airlines which don’t reward loyalty with air miles or fancy points.

    With the new breed of no frills airline, who needs loyalty points anyway? Why should I need to fly around the world three times to collect enough points for a return trip to Scotland, when I’ve just got back from a wonderful trip to Italy which set me back a mere £9 for the flight, all-in?

    As I’ve said before, anyone can get an Electron Card, and you don’t need an MP’s expense account to qualify. Banks aren’t particularly keen to push the basic accounts which come with Electron cards as they aren’t going to make much profit from them, but they won’t stop you from opening the account. I use a Cashminder account from the Co-op bank, which can be topped up in any Post Office. I might not be able to get an Electron Platinum Card just yet, but when it comes to the no frills airlines, putting snobbery to one side is the way forward.

    The cheapest flights to Switzerland involve flying to an airport in a neighbouring country, and we’re not talking about France

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    Switzerland might have much more a reputation as a tax haven than as a bargain basement paradise, but here is a little-known option of finding the cheapest flights to Switzerland, and enjoying the scenery along the way. It is well-known that cheap flights to Geneva are available from a huge range of different airports throughout the UK, and that you can also get cheap flights to Basel, whose airport is technically in neighbouring France, from Stansted and Dublin courtesy of Ryanair, and Liverpool courtesy of Easyjet.

    So what’s my little secret? Cheap flights to Zürich — that bastion of palatial airport facilities? Surely not? Well, with Aer Lingus and Easyjet now fighting it out amongst each other to offer cheap flights from London Gatwick to Zürich, Easyjet also offering Zürich flights from Luton, so you might well be able to bag a bargain, but if you’re prepared to travel with only hand luggage and if you have got yourself one of those otherwise pointless Visa Electron cards then you should probably know that the very cheapest fares on flights to Europe are still offered by Ryanair. We looked at cheap flights to Switzerland for April 2009, and Ryanair’s prices on flights to Basel were very compatible with what Easyjet and Aer Lingus had to offer on flights to Zürich. The real bargain was on flights to Friedrichshafen in neighbouring Germany, which are available for £20 return “all-in”

    All very well you might say, but you asked the cheap flights to Switzerland, not cheap flights to Germany. Well, as it happens, Friedrichshafen is a mere 45 minutes away from Romanshorn in Switzerland, on the other side of Lake Constance by ferry (hourly service). From here, there are regular trains throughout Switzerland via Zürich. Trains connect from Friedrichshafen airport (Flughafen) to downtown (Stadt) Friedrichshafen in just six minutes, and there are at least four services each hour. And the cost of this ferry transfer is a mere €7. So next time you are thinking of cheap flights to Switzerland, why not give this route a try?

    Weigh me up before you go go

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    One of the most frequent complaints at the moment about low-cost airlines — and even some very high cost airlines nowadays as well, especially for flying across the pond — is the amount being charged for checked baggage, sometimes up to £16 for shorthaul flights within Europe.

    Personally, I’ve always felt that it is much fairer to charge for baggage, rather than giving people who want to carry a lot more with them a free ride, but the flipside of this is that the legacy airlines which don’t charge for checked baggage can suddenly become much better value when compared with their rivals which do.

    When baggage charges started at just a few pounds each way, the little bit extra didn’t make that much difference, but £16 doubled could make a seemingly expensive £100 flight with an airline like British Airways, which would also include free food and drink, become much better value than a £70 return flight with Easyjet, and this is before you add in the cost of getting to and from a more remote airport like Stansted or Luton.

    However, these extra luggage charges really do just reinforce the argument in favour of travelling light, not to mention making sure that you do know how much you are carrying before you leave. For this, we would have to recommend buying some form of travel scale — I have a simple lightweight analogue scale, made by Gotravel products, and available in the travel department of many major stores.

    Here are a few personal tips for travelling light:

    • Clothes — how many do you really need? Hotel laundry might still be ridiculously expensive, but you would probably be better off by washing your clothes halfway through a holiday at a local launderette, rather than paying for extra baggage charges. It’s always worth taking some clothing to cater for sudden changes in the weather, but if you are packing tight, isn’t it better to wear that raincoat through the airport, rather than having to take an extra checked bag?
    • Camera — I used to travel with a large SLR where I went, sometimes complete with long zoom lenses, but now I just take a compact digital camera. Where are your pictures likely to end up? If they are only going to be shared with friends on the Internet, resolution is never really going to be that important, so a decent compact digital camera should give you the versatility you need, especially if you can find a model with a high enough ISO for flexibility when taking photos at night. even if you do plan to print your images, aspect ratio (print shops still default at 3:2) might be a more important consideration than megapixels, as a standard 6×4″ print at 300 dpi will need just 2 megapixels (1800x1200px).
    • Laptop — are you travelling for business or pleasure? If the former, then lightweight models can certainly save considerable extra hassle, and if the latter, then I hope you can just ditch the laptop and enjoy yourself! Same goes for PDAs etc, but if you must get yourself connected, you can always use a hotel business centre or Internet cafe.
    • Adapters and chargers — I used to take a whole load of different power adapters, especially to go with my laptop on camera, but as their technology has improved, most portable devices will go for several days now without being charged. Many hotels will have chargers for standard mobile phones behind the reception desk. Can you get by with just taking a spare battery?
    • Buying stuff on the way — buying souvenirs and other products might be part of a travel experience, but they could end up by lumping you with a whole load of extra charges to get home. Always bear in mind that if your goal is hand luggage only, you won’t be able to take any liquids over 125 mL through security, so it is best not to even look at those cheap wines and spirits. With the buying power of modern supermarkets, not to mention online, can you actually get the product you are looking at back home anyway? Work out the difference in price, and the cost of getting it home, and make your own decision. If you’re getting someone a gift, it might well be cheaper to post it direct from wherever you are — this will save you lugging it around all day anyway. Using the postal system might also be a way of avoiding checked baggage charges for your own stuff – so if you want a little bit more space in your bag for non-liquid gifts, why not leave the task of taking your dirty laundry home to the Postal Service?

    If you do find yourself scrunching everything down just to fit in one bag to get through the airport, you might want to take a foldable backpack so that you can put your coat in it once you have reached your sunny destination.

    Blogger changes airlines cycle carriage policy

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    As a keen cyclist and travel website owner (turning into frequent blogger card holder too), I was interested to read this CNN article suggested to me by Travelrants (via Twitter) about how customer Carl Larson blogged on the Bike Transportation Alliance website about being charged $50 to carry his foldable bike on the U.S. carrier Jet Blue, and then managed to get them to change their policy and refund his money after his blog post was picked up by another cycling blog – bikeportland. His post then made its way to a site called The Consumerist, which incidentally I was on earlier on today when I was looking up the Times article about reasons not to fly Ryanair (in order to reply with 20 reasons why you should fly with Ryanair.

    Now speaking of airlines and blogging, we know that Ryanair have made an outburst about ‘lunatic bloggers‘, but Ryanair have always thrived on being antagonistic towards anyone who can get them a headline or two, so their strategy is going to buck the trend a little. Jetblue seem to have a commercial model which is much more similar to Easyjet, so it will be interesting to see how stories evolve about The Big Orange and other low cost carriers responding to blogs.

    Meanwhile, I think that my own two nightmares with carrying bikes on plans pre-dated the social media revolution. My first was on a Thomsonfly flight to Malaga from Coventry in February 2006, where the wheel got dented, I think because it was put on the standard luggage reclaim belt at Malaga airport. It wouldn’t have been worth pursuing the airline for the cost of one wheel, and fortunately my hotel was just 100 yards from a bike shop so I was able to get going again fairly quickly.

    After that experience, I got a hard case for bike the next time for a flight to Geneva with Easyjet in Otctober 2006. On the return journey from Basel, the case itself was damaged. What looked like just a missing wheel turned out to be a crack in the outer casing, writing off the whole box. It took 6 weeks for Easyjet to admit liability, and even when they did, they only repeated the phrase (still, I believe used today), that “bikes and aircraft don’t mix”. I knew they wouldn’t cover the bike, and had separate cover for that, and thought things would be sorted when it turned out that my travel insurance, which was one of the features of the American Express Platinum Card, did indeed cover me for the box. But they then argued that I needed a statement from the airline within 48 hours of arrival – something that it wasn’t possible to get in these circumstances. After numerous follow up emails and phone calls, I got a cheque for the full value of the damaged box, but only under the proviso that it “would not set a precedent for future claims.”

    By then, I had already lost all faith in American Express’ customer service and cancelled my card. I have not even considered taking my bike on a plane since.

    Maybe next time I have a travel related problem with an airline, I will be abke to make a bit more noise, knowing there is a much greater chance of being listened to – unless, as I said in my last article, I happen to be flying at Michael O’Leary’s pleasure!

    Will we see more cheap flights to Spain if visitor numbers are falling?

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    According to today’s Times, in February the number of British tourists heading to the Spanish Costas was down almost 1/4, compared to the same month last year. Should this mean greater availability of cheap flights to Spain as airlines struggle to fill seats?

    For the time being, that doesn’t seem to be the case, at least not with Ryanair. Scan through any of their lists of special offer flight prices (today’s cheap flights are £5 inclusive of all compulsory taxes and charges), and you will see that once you get to Alicante flights, the price rises to at least £27. Some special offers are available to Girona and Reus, but flights to destinations such as Malaga, Murcia, Palma and Tenerife are all in the expensive bracket.

    Meanwhile, on the plus side, easyJet has announced that it will increase frequencies on its flights from Manchester to Alicante, Malaga and Tenerife. The best prices we found on easyJet’s flights from Manchester to Malaga in April were £66 return — not quite the bargain basement that Ryanair offer to some other destinations, but still very reasonable.

    By comparison, Bmibaby have cheap flights to Malaga from Cardiff for £70 return in mid-April (16th to 23rd).