Apr 16, 2007

Cheap Fares Just a Gimmick?

Finding advertised deals on flights is about as tough as shooting fish in a barrel. Actually finding those fares, as opposed to just the ads for them, however, is a different story. Michael O’Leary, the chief executive officer of budget airline Ryanair managed to get his ridiculously low fares -- as little as $12 for a trans-Atlantic flight -- splattered all over mainstream media.

Now, if Ryanair actually does offer $12 fares as more than a gimmick, I will be ecstatic – and shocked. For all of us out there looking for cheap flights, this is the kind of news we look forward to. But the cynicist in me says it just isn’t going to pan out. Oh, sure, Ryanair will probably offer a flight or two at the low rate (plus a boatload of taxes, fees and other requirements and it’ll probably be offered every other Leap day or something), but as the saying goes, If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

The recently signed “open skies” deal between the U.S. and Europe will open up routes that were previously restricted, and could realistically make lowered fares a possibility, but $12? C’mon. What are they going to do, charge us a thousand bucks to use the toilet? $500 for a Dixie cup of water?

At any rate, literally, O’Leary said Ryanair is considering serving U.S. cities such as New York, San Francisco and Dallas from its bases in London, Frankfurt and Dublin. Unfortunately, he also said that service would start in about three or four years. Better late than never, I suppose.

But Ryanair isn’t the only airline making big statements about low fares. Zoom Airlines has also announced that it is planning to launch a flight between New York and London with fares starting at around $250. Not to be outdone, Virgin is considering jumping into the low-fare trans-Atlantic airline market. Southwest and JetBlue are also said to be interested, although no announcements have been made by those airlines.

Now, the last time I checked, the lowest flights I could find for a flight between France and the Western United States in the summer was around $1,200. Seems to me there’s a lot of wiggle room between $1,200 and $12. I was pretty happy this past winter when I managed to get a $750 ticket. So, if the airlines could manage to get the airfares between the U.S. and Europe consistently down below $1,000 a ticket, that would be a huge step forward. Oh, and they can charge all they want for beer, pop, even food. It’s not like I’m taking the flight for the plastic-wrapped chicken cordon bleu.