Aer Lingus charge rises by over 60%

AER LINGUS has increased the handling charges for people booking return fares through its website by over 60 per cent, or €4, since the start of the summer.

At the beginning of July, tickets booked on the airline's website incurred a handling fee of €6 per ticket, irrespective of whether the ticket was one-way or return. On July 8th, the company scrapped this flat fee system in favour of a per-journey charge of €4.

While the change meant that the small number of people booking one-way trips saved €2 on each journey, people who booked return trips were hit with an increase of the same amount.

The latest price hike, introduced with little or no publicity on August 12th, has seen the airline's handling fee for a return journey booked using a credit card go from €8 to €10. This means a family of four booking a return journey with the airline would now have to pay €40 in handling fees - compared to €24 six weeks ago.

The Consumers' Association of Ireland called the increase a "disgrace" and accused the airline of ripping off passengers. "This increase has been sneaked in the back door," the association's vice-chairman Michael Kilcoyne said.

"They don't bother announcing a lot of these price increases, they simply put them on their website," he added.

An Aer Lingus spokeswoman told The Irish Times the latest increase had been implemented "to bring the airline into line with its competitors". Its main competition is Ryanair, which charges handling fees of €5 per flight segment for credit card bookings.

The spokeswoman said it was not company policy to "publicly announce increases in fees", although it made an announcement when it increased its fuel surcharge on four transatlantic routes by €10 earlier this summer.