Restaurants need to call time on our culture of cancellation

RYANAIR are having their fair share of industrial action at the moment. I don’t know all the ins and outs, but I have been speaking with passengers who were inconvenienced by all the travel chaos.

They were not told when booking their respective holidays that there may be disruption due to strikes. I do hope the dispute is settled soon — for everyone’s sake.

Despite their current woes, Michael O’Leary and Ryanair have done several things for the aviation industry. The most prevalent in my book is bringing the cost of travel down so it would be affordable for everyone.

I remember the good old days when flights to London return were £300+, and that is if you booked in plenty of time. It was seen as a very expensive form of travel to Britain (not alone anywhere else in the world). Getting the Mail Boat and the train or bus to London was a fraction of the price, but could take the best part of 24 hours, as opposed to a 60 minute flight across the water.

Nowadays, if you are organised, you can book flights well in advance for very little cost. This allows people to book return tickets to holiday homes, and to visit their families all over Europe, which was previously impossible.

There are also flash sales from most airlines with great bargains to be had if you are organised. My only question with all airlines is that why are the same seats up to 300% more only weeks before the flight? Is this how they keep the prices down? I have never understood how the same seat can cost so much extra.

We charge the same price for dinner whether you book six months in advance or six days. This one leaves me bewildered. Like airlines, we have staff rosters, we have to order food, wines, beverages. We have a full team at the ready for every service. Am I being naive? When you have an emergency and need a flight in a hurry, again, the price seems to shoot up. Surely if there is a sick note or a death certificate, some compassion should be observed, particularly if it is a close family member.

When people book flights and do not turn up for whatever reason, they do not get a refund. However, when people book a restaurant and do not show up the restaurant is left with an empty table and no revenue.

I am told the recession is nearly over. I don’t agree. There is a confidence that has not been around for some time, but there are 5,000 more restaurant seats in the Dublin area than there were two years ago. This means more choice and yes more competition. However, it also means a blaze attitude.

During the boom times which seems so very long ago now, there was a growing trend for groups of people to book multiple restaurants for the same evening. They would meet in a pub and decide between them which place they would all like to go to. So if four restaurant tables were booked for six people, three of them had empty tables and this usually happened on a Friday or Saturday evening — peak time for our trade.

No matter how many phone calls were made, or emails sent, it still happened. It got to the stage that if it was a large group, we would call the restaurants in close proximity to us to check there was not a booking in the same name, to minimise the amount of ‘no shows’. All the restaurants in a certain area knew the repeat offenders. This practice did not stop, but was not as rampant during the downturn.

Now that the trend is starting again, we are taking credit card deposits for Saturday evenings. We have found that people are less likely to cancel when they have given their plastic as security. This is done through a secure link and you have 24 hours to put your card details through, otherwise the reservation will be cancelled on the system and the table freed up for someone else to book.

WE were not able to be as efficient in the good old days but on-line reservation systems make it somewhat easier to manage. But maybe we should look to our neighbours for a better solution. Recently Derry and I were invited to France for a week with some friends. When we all get together we are ‘rent-acrowd’. It is great fun but in Cannes, Nice and Antibes, any party over six for a restaurant has to be secured with a non-refundable deposit, particularly at the weekends. It is the same in Britain and no one bats an eyelid at this practice. But when the Restaurants Association here mooted the possibility of a non-refundable deposit, everyone was up in arms. But if you book the theatre, cinema, ferry or indeed a flight and for some reason you were not able to make it, or simply did not show up, you would lose your money.

In this day an age is it not time for people to consider a table at a restaurant like an airline or the cinema? Cancellation within a reasonable time frame — usually 72 hours beforehand — could come with no charge and the reservation could then be given to someone who wants it, otherwise there would be a fee.

Is this not a fair practice in 2018? Restaurants should be seen in the same light as other service providers. So please make a conscious effort and cancel if you are not keeping your date. All restaurants understand if there is a problem with babysitters or if someone is ill.

No matter what or even if it is with the 72 hours, if the restaurant is able to sell the table, chances are you will not be charged, so it’s win-win.