Spain « Flightblogging.com

November 2, 2009

Ryanair switch from high tax to high sun destinations

Filed under: Ryanair — Tags: Belgium, Brussels, Charleroi, Italy, Netherlands, Ryanair, Spain — ja @ 4:57 am

So in their latest media release, Ryanair have stated that they are moving away from ‘high tax’ countries like the UK and Ireland, and setting up more routes in countries which have ‘reduced, or even cancelled their taxes’ - countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.

The release states:

Traffic at many Irish and UK airports has slumped, with Ireland facing a decline of 15% of its air traffic, and the UK set to lose almost 10% of its traffic. We again call on the British and Irish Governments to scrap these stupid tourist taxes and reduce airport charges. VAT receipts on visitor spend alone would be a multiple of the revenues generated from these tourist taxes. The Belgian, Dutch, Greek and Spanish governments have led the way by scrapping passenger taxes and/or reducing airport charges (in some cases to zero) in order to stimulate traffic growth. We are switching a material proportion of Ryanair’s Winter capacity and growth away from high tax, high cost countries like Britain and Ireland in favour of “no tax”, lower cost countries like Belgium, Holland, Italy and Spain.

Now let’s not pretend that the low countries make any significant impact on Ryanair’s route network - they only have one signficant base here, and that is at Brussels Charleroi, which has been subject to different controversies over airport subsidies. So the real move from summer to winter is from the UK and Ireland to Spain and Italy.

Is this really all about tax, or does it have more to do with there being just a little bit more sunshine in these countries over the winter months?

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March 23, 2009

Introducing terminal A - can you book scheduled flights at less than cost?

Filed under: Travel websites — Tags: ATOL, British Airways, cashback, commission, credit card processing, Ebookers, Expedia, flights at less than cost, flights from London to New York, flights to Spain, hidden fees, IATA, kayak, Kuwait Airways, long haul flights, netflights, New York flights, Skyscanner, Spain, Spanish, Terminal A, Virgin Atlantic — ja @ 3:55 pm

Terminal A are a Spanish company whose unique proposition on the flights market is that they will sell you scheduled flights at ‘less than cost’, because they will hand some of the commission back to the user. This is a little bit of a cashback proposition for booking your flights, but is it worth the hassle?

I looked at Terminal A for flights from London to New York, departing 16 April 2009 and returning one week later. The best flights I was offered were with British Airways for £252.70. These flights come with a £1 discount — now I know that airlines have reduced their commissions lately, but am I really supposed to believe that British Airways and other airlines quoted on their New York flights results page pay just 0.4% commission on their long haul flights? Any commission-based discount is then wiped out by the £4 Terminal A service fee, leaving the British Airways flights at £256.70.

By comparison, Kayak.co.uk shows me direct flights with Kuwait Airways for £251 if I book with Ebookers, or £258 with British Airways — also booked with Ebookers, but only one pound cheaper than booking direct at BA.com. Checking Netflights.com takes the Kuwait Airways flights down to £249, but doesn’t get any further saving on other airlines. Meanwhile, a quick look over it Expedia shows that they might be giving away 200 nectar points, but they are charging £10 more for British Airways and £15 more for virgin — that looks like a handling fee, but they aren’t being transparent with their price breakdowns. The best Skyscanner can offer me is £287 — but this is hardly surprising, I don’t think Skyscanner’s strong point is on long-haul flights.

So is the consumer any better off by checking Terminal A as well as all the other flight comparison websites that are out there? I have to enter all my details to see if there are any more hidden fees for credit card processing or anything else — it doesn’t look like there are, but I always hate websites that want to take my valuable passport details from me before I can find out for certain how much they’re going to charge me.

Beady-eyed users might point out that is Terminal A have IATA membership at the bottom of their website, but no ATOL number — this is because they are headquartered in Spain, so that’s where you’ve got to go if you have any problems with your booking. In these uncertain times, I think that most passengers would want to choose security of booking over saving a few pounds, especially where there is such little saving on long-haul flights. If any users have any experience of terminal A, we’d love to hear them, just as we’d love to hear any samples of bigger discounts being available than the ones we found on flights to New York.

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