Opinion – Where did it all go wrong?
As you read this I will (hopefully) be sunning myself on a beach in Spain. To get to my beach I will, of course, have had to get on a plane. The problem is that my nearest airport is East Midlands which forces me into the arms of the “low cost” airlines and, in turn, the living hell that is their online booking system. EastMidlandsAirport was abandoned by Easyjet a couple of years ago and I categorically refuse to fly on Ryanair. That leaves Jet2; let me talk you through the delights of booking some flights with them.
It all starts off reasonably well; they have flights that depart when I want to go on holiday and they do actually fly to Alicante – this is a major step forward from Ryanair who would probably drop us off in a remote corner of Portugal and leave us to fend for ourselves. Unfortunately, flights on a Saturday are far more expensive than those on a Sunday so I have to book the villa for an extra day to take advantage of the Sunday “discount.” Then I am asked if I want to bring any luggage with me. What a stupid question; of course I want to bring luggage. Let’s go large, I decide; suitcases all round! Imperiously, I click the appropriate button… and watch the price leap up by £164. I have a sudden rethink and decide we can fit all our belongings into one case. The website is not happy about this; there are four of you and you’re going away for two weeks, it reminds me. I override it and press on with the booking process… only to get into a pitched battle about travel insurance.
I booked an annual travel insurance policy earlier in the year so I don’t need to be upsold a policy by Jet2. Even so, the website thinks that I should at least have the common decency to tell it about this and consider whether Jet2’s policy might be more comprehensive. We then have a similar argument about car hire. Finally, I have the temerity to expect my family to sit together rather than be scattered around the plane. This can be arranged – but at a price; another £40 please. Of course, that is not the end of the matter because I still have the untrammelled joy of the online check-in process to look forward to.
How did we get to this state of affairs? When I was young, an international jetsetter was a glamorous, beautiful person heading off to Cannes for the festival or to Bermuda for some sun. Now it is some fat bloke jetting off to Riga with his mates to drink beer and go to a strip club. We are constantly told that air travel is so much cheaper than it used to be and that now anyone can afford to nip over to Barcelona to watch a football match. We are also told (generally by Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary) that this is all thanks to the low cost airlines. But here’s the thing, if you compare the price of a flight with British Airways with the cost of the same flight with a low cost carrier with all the “extras” that are included in the price with BA, you will find there is very little difference. In fact, a lot of them are cheaper. And here’s another thing, if nobody took up any extras above the basic ticket price, Ryanair would lose money on every seat they sell.
So, maybe it’s all our own fault. We want the convenience of flying from a regional airport and are prepared to disregard the fact we are sometimes flown to an airport miles away from where we actually want to go. We want cheap flights but are then prepared to stump up hundreds of pounds for “extras” that should be included in the price. Perhaps I should stop moaning and start looking forward to my holiday instead.
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