How fair is the 'low fares' airline?

Perhaps Ryanair should be dubbed the not-fair rather than the low-fares airline: it shamelessly promotes cheap tickets that balloon in price when all the add-ons are factored in.

Christine Gonzalez, a reader from Dublin, believes she was misled by the company. When she booked what she thought were two bargain return tickets on Ryanair's Dublin-Luton route she was alarmed to see the combined fare of €31.96 rocket to more than €117 when all the extras were tallied up.

Gonzalez was charged €10 for using her credit card, an insurance and wheelchair levy of €16.04, UK duty of €14.76 and a "service charge" of €45.08.

What is the service charge for, she asks, and why does it appear separately? "If it is a standard charge then it should appear as part of the ticket price. It is misleading to advertise a ticket for €5 when the company is charging over €15," she says.

"I think that the public should be made aware of the amount Ryanair make on top of their advertised ticket fees."

Ryanair is typically robust about its policies. "As per our terms and conditions, Ryanair charges €2.50 per person per sector on credit-card transactions," a spokeswoman says. "As Ryanair's average fare is €39, credit-card handling looks high in relative terms."

The service charge, she says, pays for the charges levied by each airport and by local governments. Ryanair shows it separately on its tickets "to highlight to passengers the crazy amount of taxes that have to be paid relative to our base fare".

The insurance levy, she adds, "has been applied by all airlines worldwide to cover the significant increase in insurance costs applied to airlines since 9/11. Ryanair charges the euro equivalent of $3 per passenger, while many bill up to $6 or $7".

Ryanair says its 50p (75c) wheelchair levy is regrettable but unavoidable since a UK court ruled that it had acted illegally by charging a disabled passenger £18 (€27) to use a wheelchair.

What's more...

Airport rip-off? Joe Woods, another reader, highlights the price of soft drinks at Dublin Airport, where a 500-millilitre bottle of Diet Coke will set you back €2.05. Buy one elsewhere and you can expect to pay €1.25.

Cut-throat prices? Gene McCarthy is unhappy about the price of razor blades. A pack of five Gillette Mach 3 Turbo blades, he says, costs anything between €12 and €19 - far more than a year or two ago. They're now so expensive, he points out, that they often carry security tags, like CDs. "I wonder how the prices are justified," he says.

If you notice a significant price increase or discrepancy, let us know by e-mailing pricewatch@irish-times.ie