Current Account: Ryanair has been voted the world's least favourite airline as its ultra-frugal approach to flying wins millions of customers but very few fans.
The Dublin-based airline is joined on the list of aviation shame by London-Heathrow, which was voted the world's least favourite airport in a survey by travel website TripAdvisor, according to the Guardian newspaper.
In a poll of 4,000 travellers around the world, unfriendly staff were cited as the worst part of the Ryanair experience, followed by delays and poor legroom. Low-cost travel fares badly in the study, with EasyJet coming second to its Irish rival in a questionnaire of British flyers.
Ryanair said: "The 42 million passengers who will fly with Ryanair this year have listened to real trip advice and choose Ryanair for the lowest fares and the best punctuality."
BAA, often the target of Ryanair's attacks, had little to cheer in the TripAdvisor survey, which voted its Heathrow hub the world's least favourite airport, based on criteria including ease of navigation and clean toilets.
Changi in Singapore was voted best airport.
Queuing just to get in the EazyPass queue
Motorists in the capital have long realised there is little escape from the gridlock of the M50.
But for some at least, there was always the prospect of a slight saving of time at the toll by using the EazyPass system that allows drivers with special tags to drive straight through the toll gates.
Recognising the possibility to dissipate motorists anger to some extent, toll operator NTR ran a campaign recently to persuade more people to sign up for EazyPass.
Unfortunately - in ironic symmetry with the construction of the ring road itself - NTR underestimated the number of people who would be persuaded by the campaign to apply for an electronic payment tag.
Current Account was left waiting after applying for an EazyPass tag 10 days ago. Enquiring yesterday, we were told they had run out of the tags, which apparently come from Sweden. The best we can hope for, we were told, was to get the tag "at the end of next week . . . or the week after".
It's bad enough that there are interminable queues at the booths. It appears to Current Account that the waiting now begins before you even get into your car.
Sitting with Dunphy
Television companies and independent production houses are constantly coming up with ever more surreal ideas for reality TV shows. Some are bad, some are mildly entertaining, while others are just puerile. Possibly the most shocking of them all looks like it will be brought to us by 3, the mobile network. The company, only in its first year in the Irish market, plans to bring its customers a "made for mobile" television show starring Eamon Dunphy.
If the show was coming from a TV studio it would be risky enough, but 3 is being far braver than that. The show is being filmed in Dunphy's own sitting room. A release from 3 did not say when it would be filmed precisely, but Current Account wonders whether Eamon will be sharing his thoughts with 3 subscribers on a Saturday or Sunday morning after a long night in his beloved Joys nightclub.
The business of health
Good to see that Vivas is still doing its David versus two Goliaths act in the health insurance market. This week it announced that it will be providing cover for the new Beacon Hospital in Sandyford in Dublin. Beacon is a private-investor backed hospital, and is one those facilities that have been built on the back of a tax incentive scheme designed to attract such people to putting their money into healthcare.
The scheme has been criticised as a cover for privatising healthcare and treating it as a business.
Whether the critics are right or wrong remains to be seen, but the first line of the Vivas press release welcoming its opening could play straight into their hands. It said: "Vivas Healthcare today welcomes the fact that Beacon Hospital in Sandyford, Co Dublin, has opened for business . . ."
