Are cheap flights the ticket if you pay dear?
IT is hard to remember now, but there was once a time when air travel was an enjoyable pursuit. One had actual tickets printed on actual card by the airline, rather than flimsy bits of A4 spat out wonkily by the temperamental home printer.
You were checked in by pleasant, courteous human beings in individual queues for individual flights, rather than wilting rapidly in a vast, seemingly endless throng, only to find yourself wrangling a ‘self check-in’ machine issuing baffling instructions. There was an assigned seat for you on the plane, rather than an undignified stampede up the aeroplane steps. And the airlines themselves managed to treat you with something above sneering, disdainful contempt.
One tale this week encapsulated the misery that is being a modern-day aeroplane passenger. Niall and Aileen Caldwell from Edinburgh arrived a sensible two hours before their easyJet flight home from Sicily after a holiday, well within the time suggested.
Astonishingly, thanks to a lack of people working on the airline’s bag drop counter, as well as three separate refusals to be prioritised because of the delay, they still missed their flight.
The situation was compounded when easyJet informed them there would not be another flight for two days, and they were forced to fork out £900 to fly home with British Airways.
This week they were vindicated in their complaint when they were awarded more than £1,000 in compensation for their grief. Speaking on behalf of the couple, QC Tom Walsh said: ‘The responsibility for taking reasonable steps to facilitate passage through the carrier’s own bagdrop queues and airport security queues rests with the carrier.’
Hear, hear. The court’s decision to award compensation represents a small victory for every airline passenger who has ever gnashed teeth in frustration at such hassles over the years, yet I fear it is but a drop in the ocean when it comes to such misery. These days, flying Ryanair, which to its credit does not pretend to offer a stellar service, merely a cheap one, is an exhausting experience that requires a medal for those emerging unscathed at the other end.
Other low-cost airlines have followed a similar route, prioritising cheapness over service, efficiency and treating the customer well.
But the problem with easyJet is that when all is said and done, it’s not really that cheap. A quick look at ‘cheap’ flights to destinations such as Berlin or Paris from Glasgow in late November shows quite a few of them showing up in the three-figure category each way.
WHEN you consider that, according to the company’s website, return flights from Glasgow for a long weekend in Paris for two with two pieces of hold baggage (£37.74 each) and pre-booked seats (£4.58 each, but as much as £14.27 each if you want extra leg room) come in at just a whisper under £500, you could have two nights at Gleneagles for less.
The depressing truth of the matter is that as long as people use these airlines, there is no impetus for them to change what oftentimes is a startlingly inefficient and unpleasant system that can take the shine off even the most enjoyable of trips away.
At this rate, we’ll find ourselves leaving for the airport before we’ve even arrived. Or worse still, never leaving home at all.