Articolo molto interessante del times su quali sono le compagnie nel regno unito che hanno le peggiori extra fees (tra bags, check-in, seating ecc. ecc.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article7041307.ece
From Times Online
February 25, 2010
Which airlines are worst for extra fees?
Bmibaby's extras are nearly 40 per cent of the total flight cost, closely followed by Ryanair, with its hefty baggage fees
Airline passengers around the world will pay as much as €41 billion in ancillary charges this year – extras like baggage, seat reservation and credit card charges.
The extras now make up an average 12 per cent of airlines’ revenue according to researchers at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, but in the case of short-haul European flights, including the one we investigated above, this percentage can be closer to 40 per cent.
What we wanted to do with this table was take a typical flight booking and compare the extra fees charged by the main carriers operating in the UK.
The first two blocks in each column, in pink and red, are the basic fare and taxes (in the case of easyJet taxes are included in the fare).
Looking at the chart, it would be hasty to presume that Flybe is the least competitive airline on price. In this case, for flights on these specific days in May, between the UK and Malaga, the Flybe fare, plus extras, is the highest.
However, fares vary according to the demand and taxes vary according to route, so you would need to do more thorough investigation across different flight times and dates to make any conclusions about average fares.
What we’re interested in is the extras. Hover your mouse over the graph above and you’ll see the breakdown by charge in each column.
What stands out immediately is that there is still a divide between the original “low cost carriers” and the “traditional full service airlines”.
The graph shows that extras, should you choose to book baggage, a seat and use a charged-for payment card, make up a considerable chunk of the total flight cost for Jet2, Ryanair, easyJet and bmibaby.
Bob Atkinson, travel expert at travelsupermarket.com, which carried out the research exclusively for Times Online, said: “bmibaby's extra charges were a whopping 39 per cent of the total charges and the best was BA at 12 per cent”.
Second to bmibaby for extras was Ryanair at 33 per cent, then easyJet at 29 per cent.
The biggest extra cost? Baggage, which ranged from one free checked bag on BA to £30 with Ryanair. Seat bookings were also pricey, and so too was travel insurance, if booked through the airline website.
Read on below to get more detail on which airlines charge the biggest fees and how to avoid paying them.
The extras break-down:
Bag charges/hand baggage allowance
“The worst by far for baggage is Ryanair, giving you only 10kg of free hand luggage with a tough policy of checking bags for size and weight at the airport for people trying to get round the allowance. Checked in bags cost £15 each way, so £30 return. Cost-wise bmibaby is not far behind. Best value is BA, then Thomson and easyJet,” says Atkinson.
In our example of UK to Malaga, a family of four carrying one checked bag each would pay the following charges and get a total luggage allowance, including hand baggage of:
Ryanair £120 for 100kg total (60kg checked in and 40kg hand luggage)
bmibaby £119.92 for 112kg total
Jet2 £95.92 for 128kg total
Aer Lingus £80 for 120kg total
Thomas Cook £80 for 100kg total
flybe £79.92 for 120kg total
easyJet £72 for 80kg checked in and unlimited weight for hand luggage (one piece each)
Thomson £64 for 100kg total
British Airways free for 92kg checked in and unlimited in cabin
“This is assuming you book everything in online and don't exceed checked bag limits,” says Atkinson. “If you do, then the worst for excess fees is Ryanair at £20 per kilo for Europe, although note that any weight over your limit with BA is charged at £30 flat fee.
monarch £79.92 for 120kg total
“Forgot to book a bag online? Ryanair is the most expensive and will take £35 off you each way for only 15kg. At the airport, Monarch at £9 per kilo on European routes is the lowest you will pay.”
If you are travelling in a group, bmibaby, Monarch and Thomson allow passengers to pool allowances - every other airline treats you per person/per bag.
BA, bmi (not included in our table) and easyJet have the most generous hand luggage allowance, with no weight limit. BA will allow one piece and a laptop bag, whereas easyJet is one piece of hand baggage. Thomson and Thomas Cook Airlines allow only 5kg and one piece.
Check in fees/replacement documents
Ryanair's £5 per person compulsory check in fee is only exempt on some promotional fares. The only other airline charging for online check in is Jet2 with £1 per person each way and £3 per person for your checked bag (on top of the bag fee). If you check in at the airport you avoid the £3 extra fee for the bag.
Bmibaby charges £5 each way for airport check-in. All other carriers offer either free check in online and at the airport or in Thomson's case, free airport check in only (there’s no online option).
If you lose your online printed boarding card, Ryanair takes £40 per passenger. Jet2 charges £5 – all of the other carriers will reprint them for nothing.
Says Atkinson: “Ryanair is still the villain here at a flat £10 per person return for all debit/credit cards - so £40 return for a family of four – although it’s free on Mastercard pre-paid cards for a limited period only.
“Arch rival Aer Lingus has a £10 per person return handling fee for card purchases - Electron is free - so joint winners there.”
The other carriers make either a flat fee or percentage. “Jet2 charges 5.75 per cent - so for any total over £173.50 per person the card charge will be higher than Ryanair/Aer Lingus £10 charge,” says Atkinson.
Monarch charges a minimum £5.49 or 5 per cent, whichever is the higher, so totals over £200 per person are more expensive than Ryanair/Aer Lingus. EasyJet charges £4.50 plus 2.5 per cent, so totals over £220 will tip you over the Ryanair/Aer Lingus total.
Seating charges/early boarding
For extra legroom or exit row seats, the only free service now is bmi (not included in our chart).
Charges for leg room/exit seats vary from £3.99 one way with Jet2/bmibaby on their shortest routes up to £60 one way with BA.
Ryanair and easyJet do not allocate seats, so the only way to get the best available seat is to opt for early boarding/Speedy Boarding. Ryanair is a flat £4 each way and easyJet from £6 each way, so other than bmi, Ryanair offers the cheapest way of getting the seats you want - but you have got to be first at the boarding gate.
Ticket amendment fees
Traditional carriers such as BA/Virgin/bmi will not allow you to make a name change, including miss spellings when over three characters are wrong. It is treated as a cancellation (which could mean losing 100% of the ticket value on all lower priced tickets), and then booking again at the new and often higher price.
Name changes on the low cost and charter carriers start from £20 with Thomas Cook Airlines plus the fare difference, up to £100 with Ryanair and Monarch plus the fare difference.
“In this case it might be worth seeing if a brand new ticket is just cheaper anyway,” advises Atkinson.
“If you want to change ticket dates, the traditional carriers are the worst as their fare structure means most tickets have heavy restrictions and many fares cannot be changed at all,” says Atkinson. “Those that do, the charges vary from free (on full fare tickets) to around £50 each way and sometimes there is a fare difference to pay too.”
Thomson is the cheapest at £15 each way plus the fare difference, although most low cost carriers charge £25 to £27.50 each way plus the fare difference.
Bob’s tips for keeping fares down
- When comparing flights, cost out your transaction in full to incorporate: Fare/taxes plus card charges/booking fees, online fees, bag charges and seating options
- Ensure you have checked all of your dates before booking and that you have correct names for all members of a group - these must match the names on passports
- To avoid seat charges either check in online if available as soon as check in opens – it varies by airline, but it can mean getting the best pick of the seats that are left
- Don't lose your home printed boarding cards and remember to check in for your return flight and print those out too to avoid airport charges
- Invest in an Electron card or Mastercard pre-paid to avoid card charges and ensure your travel insurance has end supplier failure to cover you should the airline collapse or take out Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance cover at £4 per person. Otherwise, pay by debit card
- Don't over pack and ensure you stick to your baggage limit for hold and hand baggage. If you are going to be over then add extra baggage online and not at the airport where it costs more
How we did it…
The research was carried out on January 29, with prices returned for return flights for one person between the UK and Malaga in May. The featured extras are the price of one checked bag, a seat reservation, credit or debit card cost per person and single trip travel insurance.
The “Others” column includes a £5 online check-in charge made by Ryanair, Jet2’s £3 each way check-in charge for passengers taking baggage and bmibaby’s £10 airport check-in charge.
The departure airport varies according to airline. The Jet2 route is from Manchester, for example, Ryanair from Stansted and Flybe from Southampton. The two charter carriers, Thomson and Thomas Cook, do not offer daily flights so the price refers to a Sunday-Sunday routing, whereas the others are Saturday-Saturday.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article7041307.ece
From Times Online
February 25, 2010
Which airlines are worst for extra fees?
Bmibaby's extras are nearly 40 per cent of the total flight cost, closely followed by Ryanair, with its hefty baggage fees
Airline passengers around the world will pay as much as €41 billion in ancillary charges this year – extras like baggage, seat reservation and credit card charges.
The extras now make up an average 12 per cent of airlines’ revenue according to researchers at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, but in the case of short-haul European flights, including the one we investigated above, this percentage can be closer to 40 per cent.
What we wanted to do with this table was take a typical flight booking and compare the extra fees charged by the main carriers operating in the UK.
The first two blocks in each column, in pink and red, are the basic fare and taxes (in the case of easyJet taxes are included in the fare).
Looking at the chart, it would be hasty to presume that Flybe is the least competitive airline on price. In this case, for flights on these specific days in May, between the UK and Malaga, the Flybe fare, plus extras, is the highest.
However, fares vary according to the demand and taxes vary according to route, so you would need to do more thorough investigation across different flight times and dates to make any conclusions about average fares.
What we’re interested in is the extras. Hover your mouse over the graph above and you’ll see the breakdown by charge in each column.
What stands out immediately is that there is still a divide between the original “low cost carriers” and the “traditional full service airlines”.
The graph shows that extras, should you choose to book baggage, a seat and use a charged-for payment card, make up a considerable chunk of the total flight cost for Jet2, Ryanair, easyJet and bmibaby.
Bob Atkinson, travel expert at travelsupermarket.com, which carried out the research exclusively for Times Online, said: “bmibaby's extra charges were a whopping 39 per cent of the total charges and the best was BA at 12 per cent”.
Second to bmibaby for extras was Ryanair at 33 per cent, then easyJet at 29 per cent.
The biggest extra cost? Baggage, which ranged from one free checked bag on BA to £30 with Ryanair. Seat bookings were also pricey, and so too was travel insurance, if booked through the airline website.
Read on below to get more detail on which airlines charge the biggest fees and how to avoid paying them.
The extras break-down:
Bag charges/hand baggage allowance
“The worst by far for baggage is Ryanair, giving you only 10kg of free hand luggage with a tough policy of checking bags for size and weight at the airport for people trying to get round the allowance. Checked in bags cost £15 each way, so £30 return. Cost-wise bmibaby is not far behind. Best value is BA, then Thomson and easyJet,” says Atkinson.
In our example of UK to Malaga, a family of four carrying one checked bag each would pay the following charges and get a total luggage allowance, including hand baggage of:
Ryanair £120 for 100kg total (60kg checked in and 40kg hand luggage)
bmibaby £119.92 for 112kg total
Jet2 £95.92 for 128kg total
Aer Lingus £80 for 120kg total
Thomas Cook £80 for 100kg total
flybe £79.92 for 120kg total
easyJet £72 for 80kg checked in and unlimited weight for hand luggage (one piece each)
Thomson £64 for 100kg total
British Airways free for 92kg checked in and unlimited in cabin
“This is assuming you book everything in online and don't exceed checked bag limits,” says Atkinson. “If you do, then the worst for excess fees is Ryanair at £20 per kilo for Europe, although note that any weight over your limit with BA is charged at £30 flat fee.
monarch £79.92 for 120kg total
“Forgot to book a bag online? Ryanair is the most expensive and will take £35 off you each way for only 15kg. At the airport, Monarch at £9 per kilo on European routes is the lowest you will pay.”
If you are travelling in a group, bmibaby, Monarch and Thomson allow passengers to pool allowances - every other airline treats you per person/per bag.
BA, bmi (not included in our table) and easyJet have the most generous hand luggage allowance, with no weight limit. BA will allow one piece and a laptop bag, whereas easyJet is one piece of hand baggage. Thomson and Thomas Cook Airlines allow only 5kg and one piece.
Check in fees/replacement documents
Ryanair's £5 per person compulsory check in fee is only exempt on some promotional fares. The only other airline charging for online check in is Jet2 with £1 per person each way and £3 per person for your checked bag (on top of the bag fee). If you check in at the airport you avoid the £3 extra fee for the bag.
Bmibaby charges £5 each way for airport check-in. All other carriers offer either free check in online and at the airport or in Thomson's case, free airport check in only (there’s no online option).
If you lose your online printed boarding card, Ryanair takes £40 per passenger. Jet2 charges £5 – all of the other carriers will reprint them for nothing.
Says Atkinson: “Ryanair is still the villain here at a flat £10 per person return for all debit/credit cards - so £40 return for a family of four – although it’s free on Mastercard pre-paid cards for a limited period only.
“Arch rival Aer Lingus has a £10 per person return handling fee for card purchases - Electron is free - so joint winners there.”
The other carriers make either a flat fee or percentage. “Jet2 charges 5.75 per cent - so for any total over £173.50 per person the card charge will be higher than Ryanair/Aer Lingus £10 charge,” says Atkinson.
Monarch charges a minimum £5.49 or 5 per cent, whichever is the higher, so totals over £200 per person are more expensive than Ryanair/Aer Lingus. EasyJet charges £4.50 plus 2.5 per cent, so totals over £220 will tip you over the Ryanair/Aer Lingus total.
Seating charges/early boarding
For extra legroom or exit row seats, the only free service now is bmi (not included in our chart).
Charges for leg room/exit seats vary from £3.99 one way with Jet2/bmibaby on their shortest routes up to £60 one way with BA.
Ryanair and easyJet do not allocate seats, so the only way to get the best available seat is to opt for early boarding/Speedy Boarding. Ryanair is a flat £4 each way and easyJet from £6 each way, so other than bmi, Ryanair offers the cheapest way of getting the seats you want - but you have got to be first at the boarding gate.
Ticket amendment fees
Traditional carriers such as BA/Virgin/bmi will not allow you to make a name change, including miss spellings when over three characters are wrong. It is treated as a cancellation (which could mean losing 100% of the ticket value on all lower priced tickets), and then booking again at the new and often higher price.
Name changes on the low cost and charter carriers start from £20 with Thomas Cook Airlines plus the fare difference, up to £100 with Ryanair and Monarch plus the fare difference.
“In this case it might be worth seeing if a brand new ticket is just cheaper anyway,” advises Atkinson.
“If you want to change ticket dates, the traditional carriers are the worst as their fare structure means most tickets have heavy restrictions and many fares cannot be changed at all,” says Atkinson. “Those that do, the charges vary from free (on full fare tickets) to around £50 each way and sometimes there is a fare difference to pay too.”
Thomson is the cheapest at £15 each way plus the fare difference, although most low cost carriers charge £25 to £27.50 each way plus the fare difference.
Bob’s tips for keeping fares down
- When comparing flights, cost out your transaction in full to incorporate: Fare/taxes plus card charges/booking fees, online fees, bag charges and seating options
- Ensure you have checked all of your dates before booking and that you have correct names for all members of a group - these must match the names on passports
- To avoid seat charges either check in online if available as soon as check in opens – it varies by airline, but it can mean getting the best pick of the seats that are left
- Don't lose your home printed boarding cards and remember to check in for your return flight and print those out too to avoid airport charges
- Invest in an Electron card or Mastercard pre-paid to avoid card charges and ensure your travel insurance has end supplier failure to cover you should the airline collapse or take out Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance cover at £4 per person. Otherwise, pay by debit card
- Don't over pack and ensure you stick to your baggage limit for hold and hand baggage. If you are going to be over then add extra baggage online and not at the airport where it costs more
How we did it…
The research was carried out on January 29, with prices returned for return flights for one person between the UK and Malaga in May. The featured extras are the price of one checked bag, a seat reservation, credit or debit card cost per person and single trip travel insurance.
The “Others” column includes a £5 online check-in charge made by Ryanair, Jet2’s £3 each way check-in charge for passengers taking baggage and bmibaby’s £10 airport check-in charge.
The departure airport varies according to airline. The Jet2 route is from Manchester, for example, Ryanair from Stansted and Flybe from Southampton. The two charter carriers, Thomson and Thomas Cook, do not offer daily flights so the price refers to a Sunday-Sunday routing, whereas the others are Saturday-Saturday.