4 UPDATE


July/August 2019 Travel News


Celebrating 15 years fl ying from Belfast!


AFTER fl ying millions of happy customers on holiday from Northern Ireland, leading leisure airline Jet2.com is celebrating 15 years of fl ying from Belfast. To mark the occasion, customers on fl ights to Zante and Paphos were given a special celebration of traditional Fifteens, cake, and refreshments, while lucky customers Jacqueline Durkin and Maureen Walsh each won a pair of return Jet2.com fl ights before departing to the sunshine.


Colleagues from the airline’s award-winning team at Belfast International Airport, which numbers more than 150 people this summer, also joined the celebrations.


Back in 2004, the fi rst ever Jet2.com fl ight took Jet2holidays customers in happy mood before take off at Belfast International Airport


Holidaymakers Darren Corry and Corraigh


Rossborough celebrate Jet2.com’s 15 year


anniversary of fl ying from Belfast International Airport with Jet2.com Station Manager, Michael O’Neill (centre). To mark the occasion, custom- ers on fl ights to Zante and Paphos were given a special celebration of traditional Fifteens, cake, and refreshments, while two lucky customers each won a pair of return Jet2.com fl ights before departing to the sunshine.


British Airways team are voted best in the world


CUSTOMERS have voted British Airways staff as the best in Europe at the Skytrax 2019 World Airline Awards.


The award recognises the airline’s staff for their friendliness and effi ciency, and highlights the consistent excellent service delivered by airport and on-board customer service teams.


The airline is celebrating by sharing some of the wonderful stories of its frontline colleagues and their connections to the airline.


Alex Cruz, Chairman and CEO of British Airways, said: “Customers are at the heart of everything we do, and we’re delighted that the hard work and dedication of our colleagues has been recognised with this award. We know that our colleagues make us who we are as an airline, and in our centenary year, we’re incredibly proud of this achievement.”


British Airways also won awards for Most Improved Airline in Europe, Best Airline Staff in United Kingdom and Best Cabin Crew in the United Kingdom. Here’s the story from Marcel Devereux - of BA’s Worldwide Fleet cabin crew:


“As a kid, growing up in our family was always interesting because my dad and all his brothers worked for BEA/BOAC and later British Airways, at one time or another. I would sit there and listen to their tales of trips they had been on - ranging from inter-Europe trips on Viscounts stopping in Rome, Catania, Malta


and Tripoli, to 28-day trips down to New Zealand via Los Angeles, Honolulu and Fiji and various exotic destinations. “Out of the fi ve brothers, four were cabin crew and one worked in catering. Of the four fl yers, Matt was cabin crew for BEA, later BA, Chris was cabin crew for BEA, then joined BA and worked on Concorde. He also started the British Airways cabin crew entertainment society in 1970 which is still going strong! Jimmy was cabin crew at BOAC and then BA, and Gerry was cabin crew at BOAC and then went on to become Tristar fl eet manager. Sean Devereux worked in catering and later worked in a BA restaurant called Kites near Hatton Cross.


“Jimmy’s daughter, Gerry’s two daughters and Sean’s two sons also all joined British Airways. Finally, after listening to all the stories from my dad and uncles, I decided I wanted to join BA. At 17 I was too young to apply for cabin crew, so I joined BA in revenue accounts, and at 18 I transferred to foreign currency cashiers in Tristar House. At 20, I applied and was successful in joining the BA Tristar fl eet, on which I fl ew for just over a year, before transferring to Eurofl eet for 29 years, and then last October I moved over to the Worldwide fl eet. At one time we had 10 Devereuxs working for BA in one department or another which was a record, which I believe stands to this day!”


Brenda McKernan – Eurofl eet cabin crew, recalls:


“I grew up in Dublin, 10 minutes from the airport. My dad loved holidays, it was his thing – we used to go away as a family once a year for two weeks every August, and he made it so exciting. When we took our fi rst fl ight, it was something else! I used to beg my dad to take me to the airport at the weekends, and on the open air viewing point, he’d hold me up to the binoculars so I could watch the planes coming in for landing. “And I did the exact same thing with my daughter. From a really young age, she knew she wanted to be a pilot and she’s currently a captain for another airline. My son-in-law is a pilot with British Airways – and my dream would be for us all to work together at BA one day.


I only ever applied to two airlines – both fl ag carriers: Aer Lingus and British Airways, and I wouldn’t work for anyone else. I’ve been at BA 15 years now and I still absolutely love it”.


off from Belfast International to Prague, with two destinations on sale at the time of launch. Now the company operates to 30 destinations from Belfast, with 450,000 seats on sale this summer alone and four based aircraft supporting this huge operation. The popularity of the airline’s friendly low fares,


great fl ight times and generous 22kg baggage allowance (plus 10kg hand baggage) has enabled the UK’s third largest airline to enjoy this growth. Since June 2007, Northern Ireland holidaymakers have also been able to enjoy great value package holidays with Jet2holidays, which includes award-winning Jet2.com fl ights, industry leading 22kg baggage allowance and £60 per person deposit included.


Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays said: “We have continued to enjoy enormous success since our fi rst fl ight took off from Belfast International in 2004, and that is all down to the support and loyalty from holidaymakers and independent travel agents across Northern Ireland.


“Although we have expanded from two destinations to 30, we remain focused on the same values today as we did back in 2004, which are providing customers with a VIP experience, friendly low fares, and great fl ight times on our award-winning airline.,” added the airline boss.


Holiday Which? hits out at airline


currency ‘rip-off’ Public warned of airline’s fare conversion tactics T


RAVELLERS are being warned by a consumer watchdog not to get caught out by Ryanair’s ‘rip- off currency conversion tactics’.


Research by Which? has revealed that in one instance a family of four faced being charged an extra £30 by paying for their fl ight with the no-frills airline using its ‘dynamic currency conversion’. And now the consumer champion is calling on the aviation regulator to take action and fi nally clamp down on the practice.


Which? is warning travellers not to get caught out by Ryanair’s ‘rip-off currency conversion tactics’ Ryanair customers are faced with the currency conversion system when the Irish-based carrier displays the price of a ticket in the currency of the departure airport.


For instance, if a customer is buying a fl ight from France or Italy back to the UK, the fare is advertised in euros.


However, when prompting the customer to enter card details at the very end of the booking journey, it switches the price into pounds - automatically applying an exchange rate.


Which? claims that only after clicking ‘more information’ do customers fi nd the option to opt out of paying in pounds and revert to euros. Ryanair warns that opting out could end up costing ‘signifi cantly more’.


But Which? Travel says this was far from the case with the fl ights that it examined.


Brenda McKernan - wouldn’t work for anyone else


In a spot check, it found a journey from Alicante to London Stansted for a family of four advertised as €565.81. But at the point of paying, Which? says Ryanair switched the currency to pounds. The total fare became £526.97, an exchange rate of 93p per euro. On the same day, Visa had an exchange rate of 88p per euro. This meant that if the customer opted out they would have paid just £496.72 for the same fl ight – £30 less than with Ryanair’s currency exchange. Which? also analysed two other family fares, one from Venice to Stansted and one from Nice to Stansted, and found that the currency conversion tool added an extra £26.40 and £21 to the prices respectively. Which? revealed that in one instance a family of four faced being charged an extra £30 by paying for their fl ight with the no-frills airline using its ‘dynamic currency conversion’


Meanwhile, a single adult fare from Berlin to London would have cost £235.29 with Ryanair’s


exchange rates – compared to £221.78 with Visa. That’s a diff erence of more than £13, Which? found. Across all the journeys that Which? Travel examined, Ryanair’s exchange rates infl ated its fares by around six per cent on average.


Aer Lingus was the only other major carrier to automatically switch currencies at the check-out, although Which? says it makes this switch – and the cost implications – much more clear. It found that the price of one fl ight with Aer Lingus increased by 3.5 per cent when paying through dynamic currency conversion.


Which? has previously reported Ryanair’s use of dynamic currency conversion to the Civil Aviation Authority, and says this is the third time it has found the airline automatically opting in passengers to its ‘terrible’ currency conversion rates.


The consumer champion believes the tactic is misleading and could be in breach of consumer protection legislation, specifi cally due to the opaque way it presents the rate to customers.


This cynical and misleading pricing trick is one of the clearest examples of a rip-off we have seen - but Ryanair has been allowed to get away with it due to a lack of action from the Civil Aviation Authority With the Civil Aviation Authority preparing to publish a report that will criticise airlines for failing to clearly spell out the true price of travel at the end of this month, Which? says it believes the report should single out Ryanair’s currency conversion tactic and clamp down on the practice so that the airline is not able to continue ripping-off their customers in this way.


Caroline Normand, Which? director of advocacy, said: ‘This cynical and misleading pricing trick is one of the clearest examples of a rip-off we have seen - but Ryanair has been allowed to get away with it due to a lack of action from the Civil Aviation Authority. ‘If the regulator is committed to helping improve the experience of passengers, it must clamp down on this practice before thousands more holidaymakers are caught out this summer.’


A spokesperson for Ryanair told MailOnline Travel: ‘Ryanair’s currency conversion presentation is fully transparent and complies with all applicable EU and national laws on consumer protection.‘Customers have the option of paying in the currency of their payment card which gives absolute certainty of the fi nal payment amount.’


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