Taken for a ride

I see Aer Lingus is one of 12 airlines complaining to the European Commission about an Italian government decision to transfer its flights from Milan's popular Linate airport to the newer Malpensa one. I'd complain too. Malpensa is a whopping 50 kilometres from Milan, as I discovered painfully last year when I flew there with my wife and baby daughter, en route to Venice (it's a long story). We arrived tired and suffering from parenting stress and so, instead of taking the normal precautions when arriving in a strange airport, such as stopping to think, we took a taxi.

The fact is, the journey had impaired my judgment: my wife was breastfeeding, and somebody had to drink the airline wine for us. So it wasn't until we'd travelled several miles of motorway with no sign of Milan anywhere that I recalled something from the guidebook about one city airport being a lot more distant than the other.

Reading me like a large-print book, the driver chose this moment to say the city was a "long distance! Very long!" He made it sound like the distance between airport and city was a tourist attraction. Then he unfolded a large map to make the point (it's ok - he was only doing 60 miles an hour); and sure enough, the airport was near the steering wheel, while Milan was in the front passenger seat. Much as we appreciated his candour, it would have been so much more valuable before the journey began.

At the best of times, the lira is not a comfortable currency to watch on a taxi-meter; but even in a country where the government changes every 2.5 kilometres, the acceleration of the fare was soon making me nauseous. So I suggested to the driver we'd made a mistake. Our holiday budget was limited, I told him, and if we were going to have money left over for the little things, like feeding the baby, we'd better get off at the next bus stop.

He looked genuinely sorry to inform us that the airport bus travelled non-stop to the city. "Look!" he said, gesturing vaguely at the motorway: "No stop!". Then he grew excited. "Look!" he said again, "the bus!" And sure enough, it was the airport bus, doing 70 miles an hour as it passed us.

It was game, set and match to the driver. Having searched the guidebook in vain for details of how much the fare should be (the option was too extravagant for inclusion), I tried to pass the rest of the journey in silent grief. But the driver ignored the monosyllabic replies and continued being relentlessly friendly. He thought Ireland was a beautiful country, the bastard.

Bad as the official fare would be, I was still determined to avoid the tourist premium. My plan was to check with the hotel reception before paying and, if necessary, threaten the police. But the hotel turned out to be a little family-run pensione somewhere on an upper floor and when you pressed the intercom button, there was no reply, except the door opening. So I gave in and paid the L150,000 ransom - the equivalent of two days car hire - while the driver smiled warmly and said: "Welcome to Italy!"

It would have taken a while to check the fare with the hotel, in any case, because the proprietors spoke not a word of English.

They had a porter who did have a few words, but these were mostly nouns. And they had to ring somebody bilingual and put me on the phone before establishing we were staying two nights and would like breakfast.

They were lovely people and when eventually we relayed the inquiry about the taxi fare, they said it should have been L80,000 - L100,000 at the very most. They were embarrassed at what we'd paid. The driver must have been from Turin, they thought.

WHEREVER he was from, his smile was familiar. We'd seen a similar expression on a man in Paris a few years ago when, just as tired and stressed, we had arrived at a train station in the city, tried to get into the Metro system, and found ourselves blocked by a barrier demanding a ticket.

There seemed to be nowhere this side of the barrier you could buy a ticket, but the barrier just shrugged at us in that French way until a kind-hearted local man offered to help. It was cheaper to get a book of 10 - 85 francs - he said. And smiling warmly, he offered to get them for us, simultaneously leaving his leather attache case at my feet in a calculatedly disarming gesture.

He took the 100 francs and we watched him sprint off. I was amazed that I'd given him the money just like that, but in case he was as honest as he looked, I didn't want to offend him. And I felt mean for having suspicions when he came running back, out of breath, with our tickets and change; before picking up his case, smiling again and wishing us a happy holiday.

What a nice man, we thought, the warm feeling spoiled only by the fact that the last time we'd been in Paris, 10 Metro tickets cost a mere 35 francs. We blamed Jacques Chirac, and it was two days later before we found the price hadn't gone up at all. Even then, we couldn't feel upset with our friend from the station; he was working on much smaller margins than Milan taxi drivers, and his professionalism was admirable.

I was reminded of all this by the experience of a friend (Hi Catherine!) who had her purse taken in Charles De Gaulle airport recently, with all her holiday money in it. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she's also turning 30. Which just goes to show, no matter how bad your story is, there's always somebody with a worse one.

Frank McNally can be contacted at: fmcnally@irish-times.ie