Budget air-line?

Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)
Ryanair passengers face an automatic £5 charge to print out tickets at home as the budget airline moves to abolish traditional check-in desks, it has been revealed.

That means an ordinary round-trip ticket will carry a mandatory £10 surcharge.

And anyone who turns up at the airport without a pre-printed check-in card will have to pay £40 'boarding card re-issue fee'.

The new policy replaces Ryanair's previous practice of offering free online ticketing and charging £10 for anyone who opted for face-to-face check-in.

The old system discriminated against passport-holders from outside the European Economic Area, who were barred from checking in via Ryanair's website.

Ryanair's Stephen McNamara said the new system, to be introduced from next Wednesday, will further lower the airline's costs which will in turn allow it to drop prices for passengers by next winter.

'Passengers travelling without checked-in bags have already embraced our online check-in service and the extension of this service to all passengers, including those with hold luggage and those travelling with infants, will allow all passengers to forever avoid check-in queues,' he said.

'Ryanair's web check-in service allows passenger to check-in from 15 days to four hours before, and print, or re-print, their boarding card up to 40 minutes prior to their scheduled departure time. '

The new online check-in and 'bag-drop' system will be phased in at the 146 airports used by Ryanair by October 1.

The airline also announced it will no longer accept bookings for unaccompanied passengers under the age of 16 years from today.

All new bookings will require passengers - including infants and domestic flight passengers - to hold a valid passport or valid national identity card.

Mr McNamara said the new charges only apply to non-promotional flights and stressed 50 per cent of flights are offered on a promotional basis.

'We want to condition people to get into the habit of bringing their tickets with them to the airport, just as they would their passport,' Mr McNamara told Mail Online.

'It's a kind of a carrot and stick approach, and the stick is that people will get charged £40 if they forget their ticket. But if it happens once, they are sure not to forget it again.'

In-built restrictions on Ryanair's on-line ticketing system mean that many customers will be unable to print out their tickets at the time of booking, raising the chances for penalty charges from customers who think they've completed the process.

Ryanair says its computer system won't allow customers booking more than 15 days before their flight, or within four hours of one, to check in at that time.

So people booking farther in advance - common since Ryanair's cheapest deals often are offered months ahead and snapped up quickly - will have to get in the habit of revisiting the website again nearer the time of their trip.

European Union litigation has forced Ryanair to change the way it lists the costs of its tickets to include taxes and some - but not all - fees up front.

Advertised 'free' tickets can still end up costing £20 to £80.

For example, Ryanair adds £10 or more to each round-trip ticket per passenger if it's purchased with normal credit or debit cards, making the charge virtually impossible to avoid.

Nonetheless, this cost is omitted from the initial price. The airline defends this practice because it offers the option of free booking for holders of a restrictive, ill-marketed Visa Electron card that is not available in major countries.

Ryanair increasingly celebrates its penchant for imposing hard-to-avoid fees.

Chief Executive Michael O'Leary in recent months has alternately baffled, inflamed and amused press conferences with claims - now conceded to be sharp exercises in fanning free publicity - that he might introduce charges to use aircraft toilets and make Ryanair's fattest passengers pay extra.

He also has floated the idea of selling branded toilet paper with his own face on each sheet.

Source: DailyMail

Fat tax

Ryanair proposes 'fat tax' for obese passengers
Budget airline considers extra charge for overweight after a third of travellers back idea in survey

Not content with plans to scrap check-in desks, charge passengers for using toilets and clobber customers with a £30 charge if their duty free won't fit into their hand luggage, Ryanair has hit on a new scheme for increasing revenue: a so-called fat tax for overweight travellers.

In what appears as much a ruse to gain publicity as a serious policy, the Irish-based budget carrier said today it would impose an as yet undecided extra levy on passengers who weigh considerably more than average.

The charge, which could fall foul of discrimination laws before it ever takes effect, was proposed following a poll of passengers on the airline's website. It attracted more votes than other ideas, including a €1 levy to use onboard toilet paper, which would have the face of the airline's famously pugnacious chief executive, Michael O'Leary, printed on it. The fat tax gathered nearly a third of all the votes.

The airline now plans to poll passengers on how the charge should be calculated, with ideas including a per-kilo levy for all men weighing more than 130kg (20 stone) and women more than 100kg, or a fixed penalty if a passenger's waist touches both neighbouring armrests at the same time.

"In all cases we've limits at very high levels so that a 'fat tax' will only apply to those really large passengers who invade the space of the passengers sitting beside them," said Stephen McNamara of the airline.

"These charges, if introduced, might also act as an incentive to some of our very large passengers to lose a little weight and hopefully feel a little lighter and healthier."

Several US airlines already oblige very obese passengers who spill over into neighbouring seats to buy a second seat in some cases. Earlier this month, United Airlines said it would do so for travellers whose size made them "infringe on another guest's seat".

Source: The Guardian

AlItalia troubles

Alitalia may be nationalised by Berlusconi after rescue fails

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, will consider the option of "temporary nationalisation" of Alitalia after the dramatic collapse yesterday of a rescue bid for the troubled airline by an all-Italian consortium.

As the Italian Cabinet prepared to meet to discuss the crisis this morning, reports said Mr Berlusconi had wrongly calculated that CAI, the consortium of industrialists, would go ahead with the rescue plan despite the refusal of CGIL, Italy's largest union, and the pilots' union to accept it.

Mr Berlusconi is putting pressure on the investors to change their mind and "try again" with the support of trade unions willing to back the deal.

His miscalculation accounted for his air of optimism yesterday afternoon as the deadline for the unions to accept the CAI offer approached.

When his assumptions proved false, the Italian leader was nonplussed, according to aides, asking his advisers, "What do we do now?". He soon bounced back, however, vowing "I will not give up" and undertook to keep Alitalia flying, the aides said.

Il Giornale, the newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family, today put the blame for the crisis on the left-wing CGIL and its leader Guglielmo Epifani under the headline: "Alitalia collapses — thanks to the unions". The paper added: "The unions have tried for years to bring down Italy but they have brought down Alitalia instead".

Most newspapers condemned Alitalia staff at Fiumicino, the main Rome airport, for exulting as news of the withdrawal of the rescue plan came through, with airline staff punching the air and shouting "Better a collapse than those bandits", a reference to the industrialists in the consortium. "The cost of this irresponsibility is clear" said Il Messaggero, the Rome daily: "163 aircraft on the ground and 18,500 employees without jobs".

It said the protesters were "like those who danced on the Titanic as the ship went down". They were like people "smiling at a funeral", said La Repubblica, reporting that Air France had already applied for Alitalia's slots at Fiumicino, while Lufthansa was seeking the slots at Malpensa near Milan.

Alitalia risks becoming the first big European flagship airline to collapse since Swissair Group and Belgium's Sabena went under in 2001.

The company, which has been losing €2 million (£1.58 million) a day, has debts of more than €1 billion and risks running out of cash by the end of this month, filed for insolvency at the end of August so that the state-backed rescue and relaunch effort could get under way.

Mr Berlusconi earlier this year rejected an offer from Air France-KLM to buy Alitalia, saying he preferred an "all-Italian" solution.

Air France-KLM withdrew its offer in any case because of the unions' "impossible" conditions. Mr Belusconi, who was campaigning for election at the time, was accused by the Left of "beating the nationalist drum" to get votes and, in the process, passing up a chance to rescue Alitalia with foreign help.

The CAI rescue package included more than 3,000 job cuts and contracts laying down more hours for the same pay.

Augusto Fantozzi, the government-appointed commissioner running Alitalia, said if no further credible bids were forthcoming he would have to start liquidation proceedings. He said the carrier might start grounding flights soon. But asked if Alitalia would continue flying until the money ran out, he replied: "That is what the law stipulates and I shall respect the law."

Maurizio Sacconi, the Labour Minister, said: "The road now opens up that leads to the collapse of all the companies in the Alitalia group." He confirmed a warning by Mr Berlusconi that workers left without jobs because of liquidation would not benefit from the generous redundancy terms offered as part of the CAI rescue plan.

Italy's civil aviation authority has called Mr Fantozzi to a meeting after the weekend to decide if Alitalia's temporary licence should be revoked.

The CAI consortium had undertaken to plough more than €1 billion into Alitalia, merging its flying operations with those of Air One, Italy's second biggest domestic airline, while selling maintenance operations and other support activities.

Source: The Times

Trading licence points

Pensioners take cash and points to keep speeding drivers on the road

It is the latest ruse on the roads of France: drivers are avoiding disqualification by trading licence points on the internet.

Complete strangers are taking the rap for speeding offences in return for up to €1,500 (£1,000), and police admit they are powerless to intervene. Even pensioners who have not driven for many years are getting in on the act.

The online scam is also popular in Spain and other European countries, and authorities believe it may soon be introduced in Britain. It threatens to make a mockery of a French crackdown on road safety and embarrass President Sarkozy over his promise of a “zero tolerance” on law and order.

In France a clean licence has 12 points. Points are then deducted when an offence is committed. Now motorists are “selling” their clean points for hundreds of euros each to drivers who are on the verge of disqualification.

Advertisements on the internet offer points for sale at prices ranging from €300 in the Paris region to more than €1,500 in rural areas. “I have 12 points on my licence. If you need them for work or your holidays, I can help you,” said a typical offer yesterday on the French eBay auction site. Another on a small-ad site said: “I suggest you keep your points and I’ll sell you up to six at €700 each.”

The technique is simple. In return for money, the seller provides his or her name and licence number in response to the speed camera ticket. The notice that is automatically sent to the owner of the offending vehicle includes a form for identifying another driver. Checks are extremely rare.

The black market, which the authorities admit they are unable to prevent, is an unintended consequence of stronger enforcement of the highway code and especially of an exploding number of speeding tickets since automatic radar was installed on French roads on 2003.

Some eight million points are deducted from French licences each year through the operation of 1,000 speed cameras, which were introduced by Mr Sarkozy when he was Interior Minister. An estimated 70,000 licences were cancelled last year, compared with 21,000 in 2003.

Another consequence has been a steep rise in the number of people driving while disqualified. Some experts estimate that unlicensed drivers are at the wheel of up to 8 per cent of vehicles on the road.

It has become routine in families of all classes for repeat offenders to ask friends and relatives with clean licences to lend their names. This explains an apparently steep rise in bad driving by older citizens. The rate of offences by drivers over 65 jumped 38 per cent from 2003-05, when the speed cameras began to bite.

Substituting another driver for a speeding ticket carries a €1,500 fine. Sellers can also be prosecuted for “complicity in false accusation”. The Government of Dominique de Villepin, the last Prime Minister, ordered a €20 million effort to find ways of combating points fraud, but the process has so far reached no conclusion.

Officials acknowledge that the state is swamped with the administration of automatic fines. The Interior Ministry said that it carries out spot checks. “For example, suspicion will be raised if an 84-year-old grandmother is snapped at 200 kph (160mph) at five on a Sunday morning near a nightclub,” he told le Parisien newspaper.

Jean-Baptise Iosca, a lawyer who specialises in motoring cases, said that the borrowing and buying of license points now touched every social class. “I have clients coming to see me after losing not only all their own points but also 12 from their grandmother and all their grandfather’s,” he said.

The illegal market is fuelled by a widespread belief that there is something immoral and unFrench about the enforcement of the 15-year-old points system with speed cameras.

Polls show many believe that les radars have been installed as an unfair ploy to make money for the state. Dozens of installations on motorways and major roads have been vandalised. Eighty per cent of offences are for under 20 km/h excess speed, yet each eats two points from the licence. The loss of all 12 triggers a six-month suspension plus the obligation to retake the driving test.

Some points sellers argue that they are performing a social service, saving the licences of people who depend on their vehicles for their living.

“When you are on the road all day for your work, it is impossible to avoid being caught,” said Pierre-Yves, a 45-year-old businessman from Nantes who sells points at €700 each.

“I don’t have a bad conscience,” he told le Parisien. “I only offer my services to people with small excesses of speed. And I always ask to see a copy of the ticket. I would never sell my points to a road hog.”

French officials were unable to estimate the scale of points fiddling. Across the border in Spain, the Autopista.es online motoring site, estimates the black market in points there is worth €30 million a month.

One internet user in Spain listed his grandmother’s licence points for €250 each, plus the cost of any traffic fines. “I have persuaded the poor woman to renew her licence, with the sole objective of having more points,” he said. “At the moment, I am going to use them, but if anyone is interested we could reach an agreement.”

Elena Extxegoyen, a Spanish MP, said that families were trading points among themselves while foreigners, who do not lose points on their licenses, were offering to take responsibility for speeding tickets for a fee.

Rules of the road

— Speed limits in France vary according to the experience of the driver. If your licence is less than two years old, the dual carriageway maximum speed of 110km/h (68mph) is reduced to 100km/h

— If you exceed the limit by less than 20km/h (12mph) the minimum fine is €68 (£46) and 1 point

— A fine of £60 and 3 points is the minimum penalty in Britain

— Speed cameras caught 4.2 million drivers in France in 2005, compared with fewer than than 2 million in Britain

— There are an estimated 1,000 speed cameras in France, and about 3,200 in Britain

Source:Times

Train v Plane

Train in Spain sets out to beat the plane

Madrid-Barcelona link is part of 220mph network taking on the airlines.

Delays and disruption, disgruntled passengers left standing on platforms, accusations of political incompetence and financial mismanagement: the development of the Spanish railway system has a number of things in common with its British counterpart. But when the new high-speed link between Madrid and Barcelona sets off later this month, those complaints will be set aside as the super-slick Ave S103 service carves its way through the Spanish countryside at speeds of nearly 220mph.


The Ave S103 is the kind of train that British commuters can only dream of, and forms the centrepiece of plans to make Spain a model for the rest of Europe, and the world leader in high-speed trains by 2010.

Its 200-metre aluminium chassis carries 404 passengers, whose reclining chairs - which can swivel to face the direction of travel - are fitted with video and music players.

"They are the future of travel in Spain and show that the train is anything but obsolete," said Aberlado Carrillo, the director general of the state rail operator Renfe's high-speed service. "Trains will again be the dominant mode of transport in this country."

In its first term in office, the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has spent €21bn (£15.7bn) as part of a 15-year €108bn project to transform the rail network. Around 70% of this will be spent on the Ave (short for Alta Velocidad Española, or Spanish high speed).

The aim is to have 10,000km (6,200 miles) of high-speed track in Spain by 2020, meaning that 90% of the population will be no more than 30 miles from a station through which the train passes.

The Barcelona line is to be extended to Perpignan in France, making the Catalan capital just four-and-a-half hours from Paris. Work to join Madrid and Lisbon is underway.

December saw the opening of lines connecting Madrid to Valladolid and to Málaga, which have slashed journey times and proved hugely popular. Carrillo describes the success of these two lines as "unprecedented and well ahead of what we expected. Traffic has doubled on the Málaga line, and grown by 75% on the Valladolid line."

The distinction between the Spanish and British models of investment, says Christian Wolmar, the author of a history of Britain's railways, comes from conflicting philosophies of rail's worth.

"We ignore the social values of trains," he says. "Just as we don't expect motorways to pay their own way, we shouldn't expect trains to.

"All the recent legislation in the UK, with privatisation, franchising and the complex structures of investment, has meant that it is impossible to have a rational transport policy to maximise the use of trains for environmental and economic reasons."

But, says Carrillo: "The Ave has to be profitable. From 2010, it will not receive any public subsidies. Our experience of the Madrid-Seville line is that it will be profitable."

The success of the Madrid-Seville corridor - the first high-speed link, which opened in 1992 - is partly a result of its pricing policy, with affordable tickets that help to keep demand high and trains full. The 290-mile journey takes two-and-a-half hours, and costs between €28.90 (£21.60) and €72.20 (£53.95) - prices that might make British travellers green with envy.

It will be the Madrid-Barcelona connection, though, that will test the high-speed service. Business people in Spain's two largest cities, with a combined population of 10 million, have been crying out for the Ave for decades. But its development has not been without problems. The inauguration was delayed by landslides that brought chaos to Barcelona's commuter service, as contractors rushed to finish the line at the end of last year.

When it finally gets running, the S103 will cover the 410 miles to Barcelona in two hours and 35 minutes, taking two hours off the journey time. But it will face stiff competition from the highly successful air-shuttle, with a route that is one of the busiest in the world.

The "air bridge" operated by Iberia airlines allows passengers to turn up at the airport, buy a ticket, and board, within 20 minutes. Iberia alone has 60 flights a day, carrying 8,000 people.
Antonio Mayo, who is in charge of the service, is not worried by the train. "We have faced competition from other airlines before, and we welcome the fight with the Ave," he says.

"We can offer one thing they cannot - time. In normal circumstances, a businessman can get from his house in Madrid to a meeting in Barcelona in under two-and-a-half hours. The train cannot do this."

Mayo accepts that Iberia will take a hit in the first few months, but he believes that an executive who needs to be in a meeting at 9am will always choose to fly.

Carrillo argues that the comparison between train and plane is a false one. "Time spent in a train is time won, while in a plane it is wasted," he says. "In a train you can work, read, talk, use the internet, eat, or simply relax and enjoy the journey. With a plane, the only objective is to arrive.

"Personally, I am not bothered if the plane arrives 20 minutes earlier than the train. The question is how that time has been used."

The fact that more than 80% of travellers choose the Ave over the plane on the route between Madrid and Seville supports his argument.

There is also the environmental question: trains produce at least four times less carbon dioxide per mile than planes, and even less when compared with short-haul flights. Spain is preparing itself for a future in which there may be limits on the number of flights a person is allowed to take, particularly within the EU.

In the end, says Carrillo, it will come down to the quality of the service: "What we are offering is unavailable in the rest of Europe in terms of comfort, speed and punctuality."

Look away now if you are a British commuter used to mind-numbing delays: if an Ave train arrives more than five minutes late, passengers are reimbursed the full price of their ticket. And the only problem for those hoping to get their money back is that the trains are nearly 98% reliable.

Source: BBC News

What is your favoured method of transport for short and long journeys? Discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the train and the plane. Provide examples of your experiences to justify your opinions.