Last Carriage

With reports that Ryanair is to, once again, increase their checked baggage levy, I have to now ask the question – is it really worth the hassle flying a budget airline? How many passengers can really travel with only cabin luggage? And do you really want to be flying aboard an airline where you’re fighting to get past everyone else’s baggage?

It’s rare now to see a day pass without yet another story-from-hell about a budget airline. In recent days, there has been talk on the radio in Australia that the new entrant to the skies here, Tiger Airways, does not allow passengers to consume their own food on-board, forcing them to buy their on-board meals, if they wish to eat. Perhaps not an issue on a short-hop Melbourne to Sydney flight, but on a long flight to Perth, you could be quite hungry if you don’t want to be stuck paying through the nose for their meals.

There has been more trouble with Tiger, with reports of passengers being stranded in Melbourne when Tiger cancelled its Sunday flight to Mackay, telling them they’d have to wait until the following Friday.

Today, there’s a report of budget airline Pacific Blue hunting down its passengers who were last aboard, to remove them from the flight, due to understaffing.

Add to this the fact that many budget airlines use inconvenient airports – for example, in Melbourne, a number of Jetstar flights leave from Avalon Airport, which is even more difficult to get to than Melbourne’s already badly accessible Tullamarine Airport – and in many cases, costs of getting from the airport to your final destination may well exceed what you paid for the flight. Not to mention the time wasted getting there.

I tend to stick to flying with Qantas, in Australia. Yes, it generally costs a bit more, but they still do have good deals advertised on their website – and I can then be reasonably confident that if they cancel my flight, I’ll be booked onto a replacement flight quite quickly.

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Anyone who has flown a long-haul flight knows just how bad jet-lag can be. Having done an Australia to Europe crossing (and back) every year from 1999 until 2005, I’ve had more than my fair share of a week of waking up at 1am, absolutely unable to sleep, and then collapsing the following day around 2pm.

The good news is that researchers have found one of the contributing factors to post-flight fatigue is swollen ankles and that by wearing tights could go some way to alleviating the problem.

Unfortunately, this still won’t help with the major time shifts that your body is subjected to when dragged halfway across the planet in such short time, so what other options are available?

My personal jet-lag routine is to dose-up on caffeine when I arrive at my destination, spend as much time outside in sunlight as I can, and try to fight off the urge to sleep in the late afternoon. Sleeping tablets, or those herbal tablets that result in drowsiness can help with lying awake in the middle of the night, but can also result in grogginess the next morning.

Another option is melatonin tablets. I tried these once, and they seemed to help, but there are questions over certain adverse health affects that they might have, and furthermore, they’re illegal in some countries.

What do you do to combat jet-lag?

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With oil prices now trading at US$114 per barrel, Qantas has now increased its fuel surcharge to $210 on flights to Europe, and to $165 to Africa and the Americas, which means higher airfares for anyone travelling to or from Australia.

The really interesting aspect to all this, however, is that oil prices decreased for a short period, at the beginning of 2007; where was the corresponding decrease to Qantas’ fuel surcharge?

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As if it wasn’t bad enough that budget airlines are charging passengers for checked-in luggage, it has been revealed that United Airways is considering charging people to ensure that their baggage is unloaded first.

I wonder if you get a refund on this if they lose your luggage.

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The International Air Transport Association is pushing to allow passengers to use mobile phones to check-in into their flights. The theory, as described in the article, is that the system will send bar-code images to the phone, which are then directly scanned while boarding.

I wonder if there is a point where a passenger’s identification is checked by a human? I’ve noticed that ID checking within Australian airports, for domestic flights, has become rather lax; on my last flight to Sydney, not a single person asked for mine – and at one point, when I offered my driver’s licence to the check-in attendant, she said, “Oh no, we don’t need that”. So the only ID check that was ever done on me was by the self-check-in computer, when I entered my booking number.

Now, I know that I’m one of the first people to complain about some of the over-the-top security measures that many governments are putting into air-travel, but checking ID is one of the simpler, less intrusive measures. How hard can it be for them to do that properly?

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Easyjet announced this week that it intends to start charging passengers for all luggage that they check into the hold. While they certainly aren’t the first airline to do this – Ryanair have charged passengers for checking in luggage for a year now – their reasoning for this has annoyed me greatly:

“It’s about getting people to pack smarter, travel lighter and travel cheaper,” Easyjet said.

How many people can easily take a holiday with just hand luggage? If you travel anywhere for more than three or four days, the amount of cleaning clothing you’ll require will quickly outgrow the space available in a small backpack, unless you plan to spend each day of your trip in a laundromat.

Add to that the modern traveller’s problems with what may and may-not be carried on-board a flight. Like to carry a pocketknife with you? You’ll need to check your baggage. Have liquid toiletries such as shaving cream, deodourant or sunscreen? You’ll need to check your baggage.

In fact, I would contend that the only travellers who don’t need to check their baggage are businesspeople on day-trips, or staying in expensive hotels where all required toiletries are provided for free – and these are the people who are least likely to choose to fly cattle-class on a budget airline.

This is clearly a money-making exercise. They know that the vast majority of their passengers simply cannot avoid checking in luggage, and now they intend to profit from it, under the guise of “packing smarter”.

It will be interesting to see the long term impact of these policies. Clearly the fee for carrying bags will rise, and as more passengers attempt to try flying with hand-luggage only, the queues for luggage-scanning will grow longer and it will become increasingly difficult to get passengers onboard quickly, while they block the aisles of the plane trying to lift their huge bags into the overhead lockers.

EasyJet and Ryanair may have shot themselves in the foot, over this one.

Links

• easyJet to charge to place bags in hold — This French Life

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