Transparent pricing for airlines

beer_tins

OK, I know they want to bring this in for the end of the year:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7496677.stm

...but it's still annoying. I just booked flights with Ryanair for me and the OH, for 39.98 return each and paid:

79.96 flight
51.82 tax and fees (out)
26.38 tax and fees (return)
48 hold luggage (means you have to check in at the counter as well)
16 payment fee (unless you have Visa electron)

Total £222.16

If I'd wanted to board early it would have been an extra £16 and about the same again if we wanted to use their insurance (we have our own).

Now I'm NOT complaining about the price, if I'd booked BA it would have cost £265 (I thought about it, as it's normally a more pleasant journey when they don't lose our luggage). What I am complaining about is the lack of transparency. Several posters on here have said to compare their "final" price to other carriers and decide from there. That's all well and good, but it requires going through several pages of booking forms until you even know what the "all in" price is going to be and that's the same with all the low cost carriers.

So you have to go through the first stages of the booking process on all of the low cost carriers and then use a comparison site for the others before you can compare prices. A slow and tedious task. I can't wait until the law is brought in and instead of:

£19.99 Airport 1 - Airport 2
£19.99 Airport 2 - Airport 1

I would see:

£115.08 per person (return) Airport 1 - Airport 2

or:

£230.16 total (return) Airport 1 - Airport 2

...on the first page. Far more transparent. I could then go to a few other sites and compare the overall cost and make my decision far more quickly. If the price is competitive, I don't know why Ryanair or Easyjet would be worried about price transparency.

Any opinions, baring in mind that I'm not complaining about the overall cost of the flights?!

benjus

I would like to never (at any point in the booking process) see a price excluding taxes and charges, as this is just a pointless distraction.

Other than that I'm not too bothered. I frequently fly with cabin baggage only, so I'm happy for hold baggage to be charged separately. Same for airport check-in & priority boarding. The level of credit/debit card charges is hard to justify but I don't mind playing along and getting a Visa Electron card for Ryanair.

beer_tins

OK, so if you want a reduced fare for online booking, hand luggage only, paying with electron etc. then fair enough. I do think though that they should advertise a price for a typical booking i.e.:

Most passengers take hold luggage? Include hold luggage fee.
Moat passengers check in at the counter? Include check in fee.
Most people don't pay with electron? Include payment fee.

Then they could make a big song and dance about how further savings could be achieved if passengers don't take hold luggage/book with electron/squeeze themselves into the overhead locker or whatever. But people could make a comparison based on a typical booking.

dmg24

beinerts wrote: »

OK, so if you want a reduced fare for online booking, hand luggage only, paying with electron etc. then fair enough. I do think though that they should advertise a price for a typical booking i.e.:

Most passengers take hold luggage? Include hold luggage fee.
Moat passengers check in at the counter? Include check in fee.
Most people don't pay with electron? Include payment fee.

Then they could make a big song and dance about how further savings could be achieved if passengers don't take hold luggage/book with electron/squeeze themselves into the overhead locker or whatever. But people could make a comparison based on a typical booking.

You are making assumptions there, some which I don't believe (though don't know for sure) are true.

Does anyone know the stats regarding how many Ryanair passengers still check in at the airport? Judging by the amount of priority boarders, I would have thought it was quite low?

hammy_the_hammer

please tell me that the figures are wrong .
were BA £265 and Ryanair £222.16 ?
if that's the totals I know which I would choose

ynot2005

yep its all changed, choice has been given to travellers to choose what they want, so everyone can tinker around with the price they pay, so you cant have a transparent price with easyjet and ryanair, this transparency nonsense is a fuss about nothing, perhaps ryanair are guilty of a sneaky advertising ploy to get travellers to visit their site and look, but the final click is down to the customer

its interesting you have a BA and ryanair comparison, is that from the same airport, same times, i would still opt for ryanair if it was a like for like, that all day deli snack thing is worth £5 if they still do it on BA flights, so a £43 price difference for 2 travellers is still too much for me

M4RKM

one thing that really bugs me are "fuel surcharges" and "fees"

taxes I can understand, these are charged by our government and the government abroad, for the planes to land, and take off etc etc..

however, most of the "fees" are just things that the AIRLINE makes up, and adds on, which IMO, isn't a fee, it is part of the air fare.

So if you have say £40 in taxes, and the fare is £100, and then the fees are £100, actually what i think should be advertised is

£200 base fare plus £40 in government taxes!

I know the airlines want the cheapest base level fare, and then add on fuel surcharges, but scrap the surcharge, we don't care what it is actually paying for, we just want to know how much we end up paying!

M