h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>> It is a Dept of Transport regulation that you HAVE to check that passports match the traveller AND than name on the boarding pass. <<

I know it is, but *why* is it?

Oh yeah, that's right...to prevent terrorism.

That'll work.

RF

>> Also did anyone catch the bit where the training lady was telling the trainees that they don't ask anyone in seat 1A if they will help in the event of an emergency because there is some sort of metal spike there that will kill them on impact!? Scary!


Which applied to the planes they bought from BA *when they were in service in BA*, and to the planes they bought from Lufthansa *when they were in service with Lufthansa*....

It ain't what you tell, it's what you leave out...

B

So do they give you a discount for sitting in that seat?

Quick question - the link alluded to a "baggage scam" run by Ryanair. What's that about?

SoRB

The "Baggage scam"--their baggage allowance per person is very low. But worse still, they say:
"Passengers may not use the unused allowances of others. No pooling/sharing of baggage allowances is permitted, even when travelling on the same reservation."
So the traditional family holiday packing of one big heavy case (to be carried by the long-suffering dad) and another smaller light one doesn't work--they'll charge excess baggage on the *individual* case, not on the two combined.

What I find worse is the "we are a point to point airline" deal which makes transit booking a pain in the neck. From Dublin, a lot of flights I'd like involve changing at Stansted, but I can't check the baggage through. A few years ago, coming back from Pisa, their flight from Pisa was delayed. If they'd been sending on the luggage, I would have made my connection, but I had to trek in to the centre of the airport, collect my baggage, and then check it in--and missed the deadline by 10 minutes. When I finally got on a plane the next morning, it was of course departing from a stand right beside where my plane had been the night before: they could have got the baggage on perfectly easily if they were bothered.

But I've been told that for Dublin connecting flights Charleroi is much better--it's such a tiny airport that the connecting hassles are much shorter, and of course being in the eurozone I wouldn't need to change any money.

Azara

Yeah but Charleroi is such a horrible airport - the facilities are next to nothing. I've still used it, mind! Although I thought they no longer flew to Dublin from there...

I've usually found that they apply the bagage allowance to the whole family group I'm with - although I know there is an upper limit on a single piece that NO bagage handler will accept, not matter what airline (30 kgs? That's off the top of my head so I could be wrong)

Passport and boarding card checks: depends on the airport. Dublin got such a bad report after an audit of its security that it is now very strict on ALL passengers going airside. So by the time you've got to boarding the plane, the passport/boarding card check has already been done at least twice.

They still have three flights a day from Dublin to Charleroi--that was one of their first routes, and the amount of EU lobbying Dublin/Brussels traffic makes it pretty reliable. That was the route on which Aer Lingus made the largest amount of money in the old days!

But Aer Lingus have now got prices which are very much in the same range as Ryanair most of the time, and I definitely prefer the service.

Azara

Their baggage allowance is 15kg, which is only 5 kg less than the standard shorthaul baggage allowance for BA or Lufthansa. The difference seems to be that they actually enforce the limits.

Through checking of baggage is one of those complex systems which costs money to implement. Think about it - you need IT systems to support it, ticketing and docketing systems, not to mention physical handling and security systems to support it.

Only a few of their customers would require the service.

If they added the cost of the service to all customers, they would no longer be low cost.

They could of course say "we automatically charge an extra £XX euros if you want through checking" and recoup the cost of the system that way. I would bet foldies though that XX would be so high that most people would opt not to use through checking which would increase the cost of XX which would reduce the number of users....

You gets what you pays for. It's a low cost airline *because* it doesn't have expensive IT and Handling systems to support.

B