Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

 Budget airline Ryanair plans to offer trans-Atlantic flights as cheap as 10 euros ($12.70) before taxes to several U.S. cities from Britain and Ireland, a company official said, according to a newspaper report Sunday.

The Irish airline wants to offer services from London’s Stansted and Dublin airports to New York, Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary was quoted as saying in an interview with Britain’s News of the World tabloid.

Ryanair Holdings PLC spokeswoman Pauline McAlester said she could not confirm the plan before an official announcement Monday when the company’s half yearly results – expected to show a fall in profits as a result of slowing consumer demand – are announced.

“Economy class will be very cheap – around 10 euros. But our business class will be very expensive. There’s always 10-15 percent who’ll pay whatever it costs for a wide seat,” O’Leary was quoted as saying.

Last month, the airline closed a base in Valencia, ending 70 weekly flights to the city in southern Spain.

But O’Leary hopes Ryanair could snap up aircraft from struggling rivals to create a new trans-Atlantic service, the newspaper said.

“We’ll just have to keep flying more aircraft, opening up more routes and offering people more cheap flights,” he was quoted as saying.

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No matter how good of a deal you’ve gotten for a flight in the past, chances are you’ve never flown for $10. That is, unless you recently flew on Skybus Airlines. According to this LA Times article, this cheap, new airline is the future of air travel. And believe it or not, the airline really does set aside a minimum of 10 seats for $10, though they get snatched up quickly. But even if you don’t make it in time to get the $10 deal, one-way fares start at $50 and rise by $25 increments up to $175; the average fare is about $100. The airline is able to offer such phenomenal pricing by cutting costs in certain places. "The result is that we have a cost structure that is so much lower than anyone else," said Bill Diffenderffer, chief executive for Skybus. For example, the airline doesn’t offer any frills. Instead, passengers have to pay for music, movies, drinks and food. And flight attendants make lower wages but receive 10 percent commission of what they sell on the plane, which ranges from food to watches to perfume. In addition, the airline is offering advertising space on the outside of the plane, on the overhead bins and even on the shirts of flight attendants.

The only downsides to the airline: about two inches less legroom than traditional airlines, and you have to pay for how many bags you check and for priority boarding.