Buying away may prove easier than flying away

The effects of the new Government tax on Irish holiday homes are already being felt, with foreign home agencies reporting a surge in inquiries from people interested in purchasing abroad. The market for holiday homes in Spain has seen huge growth in recent years.

But how will people get to their holiday homes? At present, the only scheduled services to Malaga are with Cityjet, which flies three days per week. Sharon Ryan of Cityjet says "flights to Malaga have been a real success story for Cityjet. The load factor is 95 to 98 per cent all year round and would be 100 per cent except for `no shows'. The prices range from £179 to £399 for a business class seat that allows some flexibility. "At present there are no plans to extend the services, as Cityjet was recently acquired by Air France, which is reviewing all the routes." Michael Stein Travel was the first to charter seat-only flights to Alicante, with four per week. These flights are filling with people visiting their newly purchased holiday homes and also those going out on inspection tours. This year, Stein expects to fly 20,000 people to Alicante. As an example from Aer Rianta, traffic on Alicante has increased 320 per cent from 1998 to 1999 to over 4,000 seats.

Jack Hamilton of Parador Properties, which specialises in the Alicante area, says his company has been "very busy since the Bacon report. At present we have 40-50 couples travelling out every week to view properties and expect this to increase." Demand on the Malaga route is such that Michael Stein now operates 10 flights per week from both Dublin and Cork. Next year, it is planning a flight from Cork to Alicante. Prices for seats are generally from £199 to £229. The agency will operate 80,000 seats to Malaga this year.

Damian Mooney of Falcon Holidays says that up to 60 per cent of its flights to Malaga are seat only.

Hamilton Osborne King's Ronan O'Driscoll says "it is not fair to say that it is difficult to get to places like Malaga and Alicante, but it would be easier if there were direct scheduled daily services. Flights are available but you must plan early. If there were better services people would use their properties more." Mr O'Driscoll is aware that many people are taking flights with budget carriers such as Easyjet and Go Airline from Luton and Stansted. Easyjet flies to Malaga and Go to Alicante, Malaga and Faro. Property sales in the Canaries are considerably less than in mainland Spain. Getting there is difficult and costly.

Schedule fares to Alicante are from £308, via London, with BA, ranging up to £374 with Iberia for Apex fares. Non-Apex fares - those booked less than seven days in advance and without a Saturday night stay - range from £773 to £882. Apex fares to Malaga range from Cityjet's £239 to £387 with Iberia. Non-apex fares range from £579 to £1038.

Ryanair's Michael Cawley says that Spanish airports such as Malaga and Alicante are very expensive to fly into: "If Ryanair could source secondary airports on the Costa Blanca and Costa Del Sol, then they would certainly consider the viability of daily scheduled services." From the UK, the highest users of their routes to Carcassonne and Biarritz are British people who have bought holiday homes in the south of France.

The fact that almost all flights to the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca are charters brings problems; the charter business is not known for its punctuality. Recently a couple on an inspection trip to Marbella having decided to purchase changed their minds after spending five hours at night in Malaga airport. Flight delays at Malaga airport during the summer are not unusual.

Aer Lingus, which has recently joined the OneWorld alliance, will have a closer relationship with Iberia and perhaps should be thinking of some sort of code share arrangement to bring Irish people to their holiday homes.