Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – November 2024
“If only the Irish politicians got the idea of a Dub-hub”. Eoghan Corry has this month’s travel talking points.
Success for Aer Lingus with Las Vegas and Nashville, ski prices are on the rise, and do we need boarding passes at all? Eoghan Corry has all this and more in this months latest travel news.
Farewell to the printed boarding pass
Michael O’Leary has clearly never met my Auntie May. Ryanair has decided to become the first airline worldwide to completely phase out the printed boarding pass, and it could happen as early as next May.
As always with Ryanair, the details are hazy. Michael O’Leary let the information slip, almost by accident, at a press conference on some other topic entirely when he said “it will all move to online; it will move to the app, and it will all be done on the app with no paperwork in the process.
It will be more environmentally efficient. It will be much more cost-efficient for us as well.” If all this is true, people who turn up with printed boarding passes will be denied boarding.
But then Michael clouded the issue when he was asked what would happen smartphones whose batteries have run down. This will not prevent the boarding process, says Michael, as the Ryanair personnel will have a record of passengers and assigned seats. Which raises the question, do we need boarding passes at all?
All tech, no paper
World airline body IATA are also on the no-paper trail. With QR codes, facial recognition, and remote detection, they reckon that passengers can pass through the airport, then board, then fly and then enter another country without taking their boarding pass or passport out of their pocket.
They have already tested the systems and they work. Good luck with persuading the airlines and immigration officials of the world. The first smartphone boarding pass was issued in 2007, the year the iphone was invented. And we still use paper.
Nashville Direct
After the great drama of a pilot strike and the decision to send the first two A321-XLR aircraft elsewhere, Aer Lingus trans-Atlantic strategy is beginning to get back into tune. The music scene and Ireland’s peculiar love affair with country and western is not the only appeal of the slanty shamrock’s new flights to Nashville which commence next April 12. The rest of Europe is about to join the chorus.
Nashville is under-served on the Atlantic with just two services, the BA flight from Heathrow that started in 2018 and a new Reykjavik service to commence a month after Aer Lingus next year. As any befuddled air passenger will tell you, transferring through Dublin is eminently preferable to transferring through Heathrow or an American hub. If only the Irish politicians got the idea of a Dub-hub.
Malta Musings
Irish people tend to disregard wintersun when it is anywhere other than the Canaries. The Spanish tourist board is launching a big “Spain in winter, Canaries in summer” campaign to capture the November dreamers. Aer Lingus has lent its own helpful hand with a route to Seville, and flights to Marrakesh in Morocco and Malta, where Ireland has had a love affair for decades.
The beautiful pocket-island has been under served for many years, so this is good news indeed for wedding planners. The paperwork is easier than Italy and the options are multitudinous, or perhaps Maltitudinous. Malta has 365 churches. One for every day of the year. No nearer to heaven can you get.
Two Way Vegas
Aer Lingus started playing the slots at Halloween with a new Las Vegas winter service and already have already jangled the bells with a surprise jackpot.
Bookings inbound to Europe are as strong, if not stronger, than bookings outbound. Aer Lingus Vegas bound flights are running 30% cheaper than their equivalents from Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester or Zurich. Surprise bonus win.
Whither Miami?
Aer Lingus have tackled their annual winter fleet surplus issue with a few innovative new routes. Miami is a great winter option, particularly with the cruise companies concentrating more of their fleet in the traditional playground of the industry, deserves year round status. Now where are we going to get the aircraft to service it?
Scary Ski Prices
A cautionary tale for mountainy men and women, ski prices have risen higher than is the norm at lower altitudes. Ski passes have been hiked: Paradiski is €389 for six days, Arlberg €423, Tignes and Val D’Isere €426. Even Andorra is €360.
Portes du Soleil is a more reasonable €336 online and Les Arcs €348. Prices on the ground are up in France and also in Austria, although not by as much. Saint Anton is €401. At least it is cheaper than the Rockies Epic pass, €930 in the early sale ($1025). Piste-off indeed.
Hibernation Hibernation
The holiday industry has bedded down for winter and arranged the nuts in a neat pile. About 180 routes went into snooze mode for the winter, over Halloween weekend 100 of them in Dublin.
There were six start-ups and two switches of airport, Aer Lingus inaugural flights took off from Dublin three times weekly to Las Vegas, Malta and Seville and Marrakesh. Ryanair’s seasonal flights Dublin to Bydgoszcz resumed and Aer Lingus regional Cork to Glasgow restarted.
Ryanair switched airports for their Cork to Rome flights from Fiumicino to Ciampino and Pegasus moved their Dublin flights from Ankara to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen, the airport on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. It also has great connections to an impressive array of airports in the Stans and other exotic destinations.
Bleak Winter
On the price front, it is looking like a bleak winter. The capping of passenger numbers at Dublin airport for the first time in history has already pushed prices up, if not to the levels Michael O’Leary has predicted.
Anywhere already experiencing a capacity squeeze on the other side is already seeing fares rise, such as Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Dublin to London, one of the busiest international routes in the world, could see capacity drop by 20pc this December and prices rise by a disproportionate 30%, although that will not be apparent until the late bookings emerge in the system.
KLM
As KLM announces that it is cutting back routes, the big question is what happens the Cork and Belfast services. When Lufthy pulled out of Belfast City, KLM increased their frequency to double daily. KLM is even more important at Cork, where the Amsterdam route is the gateway between the people’s republic and other republics, people’s or otherwise, that can only be reached through connecting airports.
KLM have a cordial relationship with Aer Lingus who operate the flight double daily. Will they stay the pace on the route when the slack can be taken up by the shamrock?
Cork has just signed up its ninth airline, a Sunexpress service for next summer. Like all regional airports, it is unhealthily dependent on Ryanair, who fly 34 of its 55 routes. Hopefully it will not lose one of its most important airline customers.
Room Keys
The keys are rattling for the new marquee hotel openings for 2025, the Ruby Hotel on Dublin’s Middle Abbey Street, the CitizenM Hotel, on the former Molyneux House site, opposite St Patrick’s Cathedral and the cheeky Moxy Hotel on Camden Quay in Cork.
There are also large scale developments by Home2 Suites by Hilton for extended stays, a new hotel at Cherrywood Town Centre, a 200-bedroom Standard Hotel adjacent to Connolly station and Ireland’s first Pizeotel on Dublin’s James Street, while Brooks Hotel in Drury Street is reopening following refurbishment. Dublin needs around 3,500 hotel bedrooms, so they cannot open fast enough.
Dublin airport’s parking initiative
A great idea from Dublin airport: they will take your car, park it, look after it, and return it when you return. We tried it, it works and is great.
Eoghan Corry is Ireland’s leading travel commentator and aviation specialist in Ireland, as well as being a historian, author and broadcaster. He has extensively travelled as a travel journalist and has been a speaker and moderator at tourism and aviation conferences including the World Tourism Forum, Tourism Ireland and Thailand Tourism.
