RyanAir £5 flights

Bringing you the latest from MoneySavingExpert...
Once again, a short-term offer for cheap flights booked before midnight tomorrow (27th May), as ever, be aware that extras charged for baggage etc. may ramp up the price...
Flights must be booked at least 14 days in advance, and travel is any day in June 2010 - limited airports within Europe...
Click the MoneySavingExpert link above to be taken direct to their 'cheap flights' article - full guide to how to make the most of this deal can be found there...

Read the full Ryanair cheap flights promotion details

Air Travel is suffering

Not only will we have more British Airways strikes to look forward to after yesterday's court ruling, but disruptions are still being caused by volcanic ash at some UK airports - currently limited to Scottish airports. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has stated that his airline will not consider abiding by EU rules on compensation and has stated that only the cost of the ticket will be refunded even where travelers have been forced to rent additional accommodation abroad.
Two out of the three high court judges yesterday voted to overturn the injunction imposed on the proposed 'Unite' strike planned to disrupt in particular World Cup travelers in a few weeks time. The injunction was imposed on Monday when BA argued that ballot results had not been adequately communicated to union members. BA intend to introduce contingency plans designed to circumvent union action.

BA strike

The economic climate was always going to have an effect on the travel business and the current dispute between UNITE and BA seems to be an outworking of the recession. BA are (arguably) forced to make cuts - this will impact on air-crew at some point, but the air-crew are digging their heels in. In an effort to give a fair view, nobody likes their contract to be changed significantly, but on the other hand, management is tasked with finding a way to make some real savings in order to sustain a profitable company for the future.
Strikes are due to continue at the week-end, hopefully a timely and mutually beneficial compromise can be reached.

Cheap RyanAir flights

Once again, there is a short-time offer on flights as indicated on the MoneySavingExpert website. The deadline for taking advantage of this offer is midnight 30th July 2009, so you will have to move fast...
As ever these flights may well be subject to surcharges for paying by credit card, extra luggage and anything else you could be stung for... but they are what they are - if you are prepared for the 'downside' there is a massive 'upside'...
In short:
From?: 15 UK Airports.
To: 75 European destinations (e.g. Bologna, Rimini, Toulon).
Book By: Midnight Thurs 30 July.
Dates: September & October.
Cost: £1 all-in except baggage & booking fee.
Find them quick: FlightChecker (via Money Saving Expert)

Standing Room Only

In an attempt to keep RyanAir in the headlines, RyanAir boss Michael O'Leary has announced that his airline are considering removing seats to offer cheap or even free standing room tickets on some flights. They have reportedly asked Boeing about the logistics of providing 'vertical seating' in their ne fleet of aircraft.
Apparently the small privately-owned Chinese airline 'Spring' have already started the ball rolling by working out they could pack an extra 40 or 50% extra passengers into planes with standing room. Having only 13 planes, Spring have been looking at ways to carry more passengers with their existing fleet.
Airbus have apparently been talking to airlines about offering this option, but obviously there will be some stringent safety guidelines to be met.

£5 flights...

It is my duty to bring news of cheap flights and here is the latest offering:
For Journeys between 17th July and 29 March must book by midnight tonight! (2nd July) - note that dates of all school breaks and major sporting events are excluded - destinations include:

Aarhus - Belfast (City) - Berlin - Billun - Bournemouth - Bremen - Brussels (Charleroi) - Budapest T1 - Cork - Derry - Dublin - Dusseldorf (Weeze) - Edinburgh - Eindhoven - Frankfurt-Hahn - Glasgow (Prestwick) - Haugesund - Inverness - Karlsruhe-Baden - Kerry - Knock - Limoges - Marseille (MP2) - Milan (Bergamo) - Montpellier - Oslo (Torp) - Paris-Beauvais - Perpignan - Prague - Shannon - Stansted - Trieste - Toulon-Hyeres.

Thanks once again to the MoneySavingExpert for the heads-up
Visit the RyanAir site for the full details...

Monarch employees could walk out

A ballot has been set for July for Monarch employees to decide whether to strike, a strike that could have a serious impact on British holiday makers and an already tightly squeezed holiday industry..
Monarch employees are happy to defer a payrise until next year, but are asking for a lump sum payment, cabin crew are also looking for an extra allowance in line with pilots. Unions say that the requests are reasonable and take into account the difficult time that the travel industry is facing in the current economic climate.
Thousands of UK holiday-makers could be left stranded at airports across the country, including Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Luton and Dublin if the 600 staff vote for industrial action.
Monarch maintain that currently, the company cannot possibly consider extra outlay on employees, but talks continue to attempt to avert what could prove to be a crippling strike taking place. Management state: "Monarch senior management continues to work with the cabin crew trade union to resolve this matter as quickly as possible in the interests of its customers and all other employees."

Least Popular Traveling Companions

Thanks once more to Essential Travel for a new report into the people we don't want to sit next to on a flight to our chosen holiday destination - Answers vary from those who don't want their personal space invaded by overweight travelers to those who would prefer not to sit next to their own family members - one respondent answering:‘I would pay not to sit next to my 15 year old daughter’.
The feelings against more portly travelers appear to run fairly high with over 40% of the respondents (out of 1000) citing 'Overweight Individuals' as the least desirable traveling companion - To be fair teenage offspring, or more accurately 'family' were only identified as a problem by 2% which translates as 20 out of the 1000 interviewed.
A good number (17%) identified 'babies' as undesirables whilst surprisingly 'smelly' (7%) was pipped by 'chatterbox' (8%) - Please note that surprisingly and smelly are not part of the same phrase... to be 'surprisingly smelly' indeed puts a whole new spin on simply being smelly...
Politicians and bankers were given an easy ride and identified as being slightly less desirable than your own family members and a honeymooning couple.

This survey will no doubt be welcomed by those airlines who are planning to introduce a 'fat tax' for those who find it difficult to fit into a single seat adequate for most other travelers. RyanAir is one of those who is considering this approach. There is some confusion as to how exactly this charge will be made as weight alone may not constitute an invasion of personal space, and any charge is almost sure to be challenged under discrimination laws. Some US airlines are already charging very obese passengers who spill over into neighbouring seats for a second seat in some cases. United Airlines said it would make additional charges for travellers whose size made them "infringe on another guest's seat".

How green is your travel?

The travel industry is under a lot of pressure today from various different angles. Firstly there was the massive hike in fuel prices that have had disastrous effects across the industry, followed closely by a global recession which has decimated travel order books for the coming months. All the time there is the spectre of environmental considerations looming in the background, as the travel industry has been highlighted as a major user of fossil fuels. Not only the travel companies themselves, but their clients too where they are part of large corporations, municipal bodies or charities are obliged to examine their carbon footprint and declare publicly that they will pledge to be 'green'.
There are a number of options that the travel companies can pursue to paint a greener picture and turn the situation to their advantage with some clever Travel Marketing.
Carbon off-setting is a popular way to give the right impression, but there are other avenues such as being associated with research into new fuels and technologies. All industries should be working towards showing willingness to be greener, but the travel industry in particular needs to give assurances to their customers, that they are concerned about environmental issues. This could be done simply by replacing any fleet road vehicles that they might own with dual-fuel or green fuel vehicles. The impact on the public is not so much in the detail as in the way in which this is publicly perceived - that's the beauty of marketing.

ATOL debt rises

The fund that gets stranded holidaymakers back home now has a bigger hole than ever in it's finances after the recent problems in the travel industry, and with less take-up of holidays expected over the next few years it is difficult to know how this hole is going to be plugged.
The fund has recently paid out £90m in circumstances where the corresponding bonds were only worth £48m, adding to the pre-existing £20m deficit - meaning that ATOL is now £40m in the red. Reports say that the fund has a £60m overdraft facility that the bank (Barclays) may not be extending, needless to say one more major collapse could see ATOL sunk. There is a £250m insurance with AIG, but as AIG itself is not exactly financially independant at the moment. Revenue may be increased through the APC in October, but October is a long way off...

Complaint letter to Richard Branson

Oh dear, the quality of Virgin in flight meals seems to have slipped a little, this is what one customer had to say in a genuine complaint letter received by Virgin Atlantic, which earned a personal call from Richard Branson to express his gratitude for the funniest complaint letter ever received:

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don't get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it's next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That's got to be the clue hasn't it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it's in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you'll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It's only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what's on offer.

I'll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it's Christmas morning and you're sat their with your final present to open. It's a big one, and you know what it is. It's that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it's not in there. It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing. That's how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It's mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it's baffling presentation:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn't want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it's just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson's face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I'd had enough. I was the hungriest I'd been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It's another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard.... What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I'd done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn't eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can't imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It's just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it's knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours........................

European Flights for £1

Ends 19th January...
Ryanair are back with more £1 flights to European destinations.
The avaiable dates are limited which increases the likelihood that you will be able to secure a cheap flight one way, but may have to settle for a more expensive flight for the other leg of the journey. Available from 16 different UK airports for journeys taking place between 27Jan and 12Mar 2009.
For more information visit Martin Lewis's MoneySavingExpert website or go straight to Ryanair themselves..

Fallout over XL set to continue

With XL administrators looking for unpaid bills from agents, the CAA will also come looking to recoup cash from non-ATOL agents who's clients have already been compensated by CAA. In the meantime legal proceedings have been started against Travel Republic who have been accused of operating illegally. It has also been reported that Travel City Direct has been sold by XL administrators to Virgin Holidays for £1.4m.
In other news, there has been a reverse of previous trends as BA cuts it's fuel surcharges. We wait to see whether any other airlines will follow suit.

Weak pound affects European Travel

There has already been a drop in travel and flights as a result of economic downturn, the strong Euro is going to add to the cost of European travel for UK holiday makers. In contrast, the home travel industry could well reap the benefits as the Euro and the dollar are now going further in the UK.

Currency changes always have the capacity to cause panic in various quarters, but there are always sectors that benefit from the changes whether they be a weakening or strengthening of the currency in question.

There is every likelihood that the currencies will level out in time, but there has been speculation about taking the opportunity to adopt the Euro when parity with the £UK is reached. However you would have to question the sense of accepting parity with the pound which would make European goods more expensive than they have ever been on a permanent basis.

Ryanair pull out of Fuerteventura

Ryanair are stopping their flights to Fuerteventura after January 2009. The reasons cited are centred around non-fullfilment of agreements with local businesses, but some in the trade believe that it could be due to plummeting sales since Ryanair stopped using agents to sell seats.
UK travellers will be limited to booking with Thomas cook or Thomson for flights to Fuerteventura after next month.
In other news, Thomas Cook are getting ready to complete a deal to buy 'Medhotels' from Lastminute.com. This deal is likely to allow lastminute.com to sell Thomas Cook products, a portfolio it has not previously had access to.

North Africa gains popularity

North Africa has benefited from investments in recent years, and coupled with lower air fares this area is expecting growth which could see visitors from the UK double compared with figures from three or four years ago. Morocco will be the main benefactor of these 'travel dollars' and has proven to be popular, with destinations like Tangier, Casablanca, Marrakesh on offer, the lure of the African continent is now affordable whilst remaining exotic.

Morocco is only one geographical step on from Southern Europe and can be reached in only three hours, it offers cultural delights, fantastic architecture and landscapes. All good places have their down-sides however, and a note of caution needs to be injected as last year tourists were targeted by suicide bombers in Casablanca.

Lufhansa grows ever larger

The German national airline Lufthansa is building it's portfolio in order to raise it's profile at Heathrow as a competitor to BA. Lufthansa has acquired BMI giving it a combined portion of around 15% of Heathrow slots, but the ambition doesn't stop there.
Not content with playing distant second to the dominance of BA, Lufthansa have their eyes on:

• Austrian Airlines
• SAS
• Alitalia

These three companies or at least stakes in them are in Lufthansa's sights to add to their growing business, industry commentators are concerned that this could reduce competition and drive up fares.

Insurance industry remains nervous

The problems with XL have made the insurance industry wary of the travel sector, of course XL were insured by AIG, itself under threat of collapse even without the increased pressure of the XL failure.
In a shock move, Insurance company Euler Hermes, a travel insurance specialist has seen fit to withdraw cover from one of it's clients leaving them potentially exposed despite assurances from the travel company that holidays that have been sold will not be affected in any way.
This development compounds some of the current problems such as the struggling travel industry and the struggling financial houses, neither of which will becoming stable any time soon in the current economic climate. One can't help but feel that there will be more travel industry heads to roll before the next holiday season is over.

Co-op won't sell a KISS

Directors from XL's Freedom Flights left to form a new 'seat-only' company KISS just months before the collapse of XL. Some observers have taken the view that making deals with KISS is a betrayal of the travel industry and the boss of Co-operative travel Mike Greenacre has come out to declare that he will never work with KISS.

Greenacre clearly lays the blame for the millions paid out by the travel industry for the collapse of XL at the feet of the same directors that are now running KISS. Other companies have not taken such a bold stance and have said that Greenacre's reaction reflects personal emotions and that they make use of the services offered by the new company.
As a company, Co-operative are known for their moral stance on all sorts of issues from fair trade retailing to their stance on bank lending. Now it's the turn of the travel arm of the co-op to allow moral judgments take precedence over trading advantage.

BA take stock....

In a sign of the times, BA have stepped back from their plans to take over Iberia airlines as BA's own share-price has been dropping on the stock exchange. The official view at the moment is that this proposed merger will go ahead at a later date, but with no prospect of steeply rising stock market prices any time soon, one wonders whether it will actually go ahead at all.

With flights set to be cut back across Europe and world-wide, and the global economy in decline, not to mention environmental issues with air travel - the travel industry is in for some turbulence over the next couple of years.