The number of holidaymakers on low-cost tickets has fallen by three to four per cent in the last few months as rising fuel costs force up ticket prices.
Efforts to resolve the ongoing dispute over new rosters at the airline will resume today at the Labour Relations Commission as a further 20 flights are cancelled.
AER LINGUS CABIN CREW have called off a work-to-rule strike threatened for today over a roster dispute.
Impact, the trade union representing the crew, said it would suspend the action to allow “detailed consideration” of the findings issued by the Labour Relations Commission yesterday evening.
The LRC delivered an arbitration ruling on the dispute between crew and management.
The detailed findings, which run to 39 pages and reflect the complex technical issues under consideration, deserve and demand close reading and analysis.
Time will also be required for cabin crew staff to read, digest and discuss the document.
Staff said the strike would not have affected the flight schedule.
The ongoing dispute between staff and management centres on a range of cost-cutting measures planned by the airline.
Yesterday the airline announced losses of over €20m for the first half of this year – a significant improvement on the €81.7m lost in the same period of last year.
RYANAIR has introduced new procedures after a three-year-old girl fell onto the tarmac at Stansted Airport.
Olgay was boarding a plan in July 2009 when she slipped through the gap between the handrail. She had climbed to the platform at the top of the steps unassisted. Her mother, Sasha Slater was carrying her 18-month-old son, Joe, with one hand and luggage with the other.
The girl, Olga, escaped with only minor injuries.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) recommended that Ryanair review procedures in light of the incident. The AAIB recommended “that assistance is made available to passengers accompanied by children and those with special needs”.
The AAIB said there had been four previously reported similar incidents involving small children and this had led to American aviation authorities issuing a special airworthiness information bulletin. The AAIB said it would be making design recommendations to Boeing – the manufacturers of the aircraft.
Ryanair said: ‘New procedures including new high visibility tensa barriers and specific announcements to passengers travelling with young children on both boarding and disembarkation have also been introduced in order to eliminate any recurrence of these extremely rare events in the context of over one million Ryanair flights over the past two years.’
AER LINGUS says it is disappointed “that the Impact trade union has decided to ballot for a third time” on the company’s cost-saving efforts. The airline have moved to reassure passengers and says “there will be no disruption to their travel plans whatsoever arising out of this latest development.” Impact are balloting members for action up to and including strike action.
THEY’VE JUST RELEASED their first album and are arguably one of the most successful new Irish acts, but should we really rename Dublin Airport after a pair of X Factor rejects?
But Ryanair have launched a poll to rename Dublin Airport after the government announced it would consider renaming the airport, prior the opening of terminal two in September.
It’s not uncommon for airports across the world to be named after famous citizens. Liverpool airport was renamed recently as John Lennon Airport, JFK Airport in New York is named after the former president and Charles De Gaulle in Paris, after the former French President.
Ryanair’s poll gives a number of choices for the airports renaming including:
Dublin “The Zoo” Airport – home of expensive white elephants (T2)…
Dublin “Ray Burke” Airport – “will we get a receipt – will we f**k”…
Dublin “Bertie Ahern” Airport –from North Dublin, cost taxpayers a fortune….
Dublin “Ivor Callely” Airport – expensive, but is it in Dublin or Cork?
Dublin “Jedward” Airport – prices rise quicker than their hair.
Stephen McNamara a spokesperson for Ryanair said: “The Govt has decided that the most pressing issue at Dublin Airport is not that T2 will double capacity to 60m passengers p.a. while traffic collapses to less than 17m p.a., but rather that Dublin airport should be renamed.
Ryanair are offering voters the chance to win a weekend trip to Venice for two, including accommodation in a four star hotel and €1,000 spending money.
MICHAEL O’LEARY is sure to be chuckling away to himself, as the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) has today been slapped on the wrist.
The DAA has failed to meet two out of 13 quality targets, set for it by the Commission for Aviation Regulation, and as a consequence, something that will really please the low cost airline – the DAA will be forced to drop airport charges.
The DAA failed to ensure that passengers spend less than 30 minutes queueing at a security checkpoint. On several occassions it was noted that passengers queued over the limit – up to 34minutes at one stage.
The airport also failed in satisfying passengers need for phone and internet facilities at the airport.
A spokesman for the Commission for Aviation Regulation said the amount of reduction in the maximum airport charge was minimal – around 1 cent per passenger – but that this was the first time airport charges were being partly based on quality standards.
A FRENCH AIR TRAFFIC controllers’ strike is causing serious disruption to flights today. Flights between Ireland and France have been affected, with Aer Lingus, Air France and Ryanair cancelling flights between Ireland and Paris, Nice, Carcassonne, Biarritz, and Marseille.
Air France said that only short- and medium-haul flights are affected.
In Paris, one in five flights scheduled at Charles de Gaulle Airport and 50% at Orly have been cancelled.
Air traffic controllers are striking over plans to unify EU airspace and create one regional authority between France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The switch to this airspace body comes under the “Single European Sky” plan which aims to streamline Europe’s air traffic control.
The strike is the third major airport strike in France this year, and is expected to run until early tomorrow.
RYANAIR HAS BEEN criticised by the British Advertising Standards Authority for misleading consumers with its adverts for low fares, the BBC reports. The ASA was following up a complaint made by rival airline EasyJet that two newspaper adverts by Ryanair were “likely to mislead”.
SIXTY-EIGHT PER cent of patients are unaware that they can officially complain about their hospital stay.
An Irish Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare survey revealed that although 93 per cent of the patients surveyed were satisfied with the service they received, one in every five wanted to discuss an area of dissatisfaction but a third felt they never had the opportunity to do so.
The aspects of care that patients were most dissatisfied with included emergency department conditions and waiting times and lack of information about hospital routines, tests, medication side effects and after-care.
So today we want to know: Have you ever lodged a complaint about a hospital?
Partly sunny
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A brief shower or two in the afternoon
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