How changing airport could save you €900 on your family holiday
BOOKING your family holiday from Belfast instead of Dublin could save you as much as €900, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
The massive differences in price apply even when you and your loved ones stay at the same location, at the same hotel and on the same dates.
The Mail looked at the cost of package holidays for an average family – two adults and two children – staying for seven nights during the sunny summer months.
Belfast International Airport has fewer destinations than Dublin but the areas the Irish Daily Mail looked at included those they had in common – Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Bulgaria. The differences were startling – the lowest was €397.47, while the highest came to €895.91. For example, a seven-night stay in the Algarve in July cost €4,084 when flying ex-Dublin and just €3,188.09 from Belfast, a difference of €895.91.
Prices were compared online using package holiday group TUI, which operates in both the UK and Ireland. Booking on TUI.ie and flying from Dublin was dearer in most cases than booking from its UK site and flying from Belfast.
However, if travellers booked flights alone there was little difference, except for Ryanair where Dublin costs were substantial higher in some cases.
A Ryanair spokeswoman said it offers the lowest fares from all airports. ‘Our fares are sold on a first come, first served basis, and rise only as quickly as the lowest fare class is sold,’ she said.
Efforts to contact TUI for comment were unsuccessful.