Cheap flights (Keeping the air fair - part 3)

 
Delightfully satirical ditty by singing/cabaret group, Fascinating Aida (wikipedia) (official site). Says it all really... can you guess who they're on about?


 

Visa woes

 
Friday 27th November

My short trip to Bali hasn't started well.

My original 1-year visa to Australia expired today. The intent was to leave Australia for a few days during which time I'll obtain a visitor visa enabling me to return for a week to referee another NSW Touch State Cup before I had to leave for good. I'd arrived at this plan following hours of research and also advice given to me on the phone by the immigration office - but naturally there was an uncommunicated technicality as there always seems to be with these things...

JetStar won't let me fly - this bombshell coming after I've queued for three quarters of an hour and with only 5 minutes left until check in closes. I don't think I've ever had panic and despair set in more quickly in my life. The reason I'm not being denied boarding is because I have a return ticket to Australia but am not yet in possession of a valid visa to get back into the country. But I am neither allowed nor able to apply for that visa unless I am off-shore... talk about a case of "chicken and egg"?! I'm moved to JetStar's service desk where despite being rather shaken I'm actually managing to remain reasonably calm. The service desk supervisor re-confirms my situation. Frustration builds but I suppress it as to be fair to her she's under legal direction and she's being as understanding as she can, besides which it would do no good. She asks if I have a ticket out of Australia to which I reply December 8th. She suggests to change my return flight from Bali to December 7th, this way I could fly today and also return to Sydney airport "in transit" because I would be leaving the country again within short timeframe. I try to explore other options with her but it soon becomes clear that this is the only way I'm getting out of Australia today - which I must do to avoid being illegal. So I reluctantly agree after which I'm checked in, my bag is tagged and I race to security and on to my departure gate.

The flight is unpleasant not because of anything on the part of the airline but because I am a massive bundle of stress. I try in vain to sleep because I know I'll be up late at the hotel online and making phone calls. I reflect on some of the lighter moments I've had with friends discussing having to "fight" to remain in Australia - a few suggesting that I "return on a boat" (topical/current local issue of a spike in asylum seekers) while another took a historical line musing that in the not too distant past "all I needed to do was steal a loaf of bread and I'd be sent here for free."

Immigration in Bali is what I would call a pretty standard experience - it costs US$10 for a visa which could be bought on arrival. But as I collect my luggage I'm approach by two guys in uniform who insist on taking my bags from me. Naturally I thought I was subject to a random security screening as is now common in many airports. One wheeled my suitcase while the other carried my hand luggage, first to a security scanner then past a customs desk. We turn a corner where they stop and demand US$10 EACH (!!) to return my property. My fuse is already pretty short - aside from the fact that I feel deceived they've wheeled my stuff the grand distance of about 25 metres - but I have no energy to argue so I give up the remaining US$11 in my wallet and take my bags back before exiting the building. Nobody has had their hands on my luggage since.

My airport-hotel transfer is there to meet me but we have to wait for another guest so I stand (im)patiently to one side. After 25 minutes the driver comes back - this is apparently his wait time limit so we leave. It's only a short distance from Denpasar airport to my hotel in Kuta but the traffic crawls and I'm not sure the driver got out of first gear. This is doing nothing for my nerves.

By now I've figured out that neither my Australian nor Irish SIM cards will work here. I knew the Australian one wouldn't but I'm pretty annoyed with 3 Ireland who assured me my Irish one would.

I check in to the hotel around 11pm knowing I will be checking out again in the morning - reason being I have an overnight dive trip booked to the north side of the island. After changing some money and buying an internet card I make my way to my room - concierge staff insist on assisting but I'm just not interested.

I don't unpack but reach immediately for my laptop and head straight for eVisitor visa application website which I have bookmarked. I plough through the application in a couple of minutes and consider changing my return flight now but any confidence I had of visa approval much less a quick one is completely eroded so I pull down as many contact numbers as I can find for immigration offices as well as airlines. Even if I have no mobile phone, I can at least hope to make calls through Skype. Fortunately it works and I use up the remainder of my time talking gibberish at my best friend who helps calm me down (thank you) so I can go to sleep. There's not much else I can do tonight except try to rest - it's now 1am and I have to be up again at 6.

Saturday 28th November

It comes as no surprise that I am wake before either my alarm call or phone alarm have a chance to do their job. I re-arrange my packing as I plan to take an overnight bag only on the dive trip. Ordinarily I wouldn't take my laptop anywhere near water but under the circumstances I feel on this occasion I have no option. I check out and send my large bag to storage before grabbing breakfast despite having zero appetite.

Reception staff kindly allow me use one of their internet computers without charge for the two minutes it required to check my email. I can't begin to describe the feeling of relief when I saw "NOTIFICATION OF GRANT OF AN EVISITOR..." appear on the screen in capital letters. My focus shifts to my flight but unfortunately I have to get off the computer - I should be in the lobby waiting for the diving people anyway.

They're 15 minutes late. I purchase an internet card and attempt to phone JetStar via Skype. I'm about two minutes into the call and about to give my credit card information when dive staff enter the lobby. I try to continue but my Skype call - whose audio quality has been awful - finally cuts out and at this point I'm just about ready to break something.

The AquaMarine Diving staff - some locals, some ex-pats - and I introduce ourselves and I explain what's going on. I'm obviously not explaining the situation properly enough so they understand. So I strip it down to the bare minimum: "I'm desperately trying to change a flight but have no phone and (now that I'm away from my hotel) no Internet access." We have a chat about what I would like to do and they very kindly offer to try to change my flight for me while I'm on the excursion with them, which I jump at. So I scribble down booking & flight details and about 5 phone numbers and drop them off at their office which we call in at to collect one of the other guides.

I know in my heart heart they're trying their best but after a morning waiting for phone calls that came in when Janri is either away from his phone or we are underwater I start to really worry again. Over my lunch and against my better judgement I provide my credit card details hoping they would be able to change the flight when they managed to get through but after returning from the afternoon dive I get the message that only the passenger can change the flight. Frustrating, but it's probably a necessary piece of red tape. So I have to make the decision to abandon my night dive, overnight stay (which is incidentally in the middle of nowhere with zero lines of communication) and dives next day - there was no way I would be able to enjoy things until I got this resolved.

After being dropped back at my hotel I attempt to check in for an extra night as they weren't expecting me until tomorrow. I'm sure people arrive on-spec at hotels all the time but given how difficult they managed to find it I began to wonder. After some concern over them not being able to bill my credit card things finally get resolved and I head to my room together with my luggage now returned to me and a freshly purchased Internet card. Again I skip unpacking but immediately get online. Thankfully the Skype call just about holds up and I'm able to get my return flight leg put back to what it was originally and I now have email confirmations of both it and my visa. PHEW.

Of course now that it's all over and I've written about it I can see things I could (should?) have done differently. It's funny how our thought processes get screwy under duress, isn't it? I think that's why as people we generally turn to somebody outside and thus unaffected by the system we're in and problems we're facing - they can look at things objectively and dissect them into manageable bits.

For now though I'm just glad to have the visa and my flight back to what it was. Hopefully I can now enjoy the rest of my time here but I don't think I'll actually relax until I'm back landside in Sydney.
 

Deportation day

 
Today is deportation day from Australia - I arrived here a year ago. I have to leave the country in order to apply for a tourist visa so I can hang around for one more [Touch] tournament. I must be the only person on the planet unhappy about a trip to Bali...
 

Keeping the air fair - part 2

 
Sometimes I wonder how certain people manage slip through recruitment filters undetected.

A six-year-old girl was recently banned from taking her teddy bear (wrapped in the plastic bag to keep it dry from the rain) aboard an easyJet flight in the UK after a check-in clerk deemed it "excess baggage". Tearful Alba Apreciado-Peris was told by the clerk that Bebe the bear was too big to join her in the cabin on a flight from Glasgow to Stansted. The female clerk then told Alba's stunned mother she would have to pay £9 (€12/AU$20) to put the teddy in the hold. She ended up posting the bear home.

Are you fcuking KIDDING me? I can appreciate that the employee was following company policy but it's a six-year-old child and surely common sense should have prevailed here. This is a perfect example of what's wrong in the world and I'm stopping before I get started. Jeez...

Addendum:
Full article from the Daily Mail.
 

Keeping the air fair

 
While browsing for air travel routes around Australia I discovered Virgin Blue, one of the country's low fare / budget / no frills (delete as appropriate) airlines. Okay so I admit there's nothing novel about that given these airlines seem to be a dime a dozen these days - even Aer Lingus, the Irish national carrier, re-structured itself and its business & pricing models to compete with (read: avoid getting wiped out by) Ryanair and others of their kind.

The pricing model and strategy for such airlines seems to be that they publish a really low fare to get your attention (and your arse in the seat). Then as you advance through the booking process you realize that every passenger cost you can think of has been stripped out - handling charge or booking fee, airport tax, baggage fee, fuel surcharge, credit card fee - the list goes on. The latest one I've seen is the airport check-in fee. Some of these are more irritating than others.

When I originally started writing, I had intended simply to pose some rhetorical questions around fuel surcharges vs. the price of oil - but now that I'm thinking about it I feel a bit of a general industry rant coming on once I get done with that.

Fuel surcharge. As the price of oil began soaring to an all-time high of $147 a barrel last year, just about every airline was threatened and as a counter measure they sportingly passed the cost onto the consumer. Now, while Ryanair were implemented the model that others copied and I'll point the finger at for a lot of things, the fuel surcharge is one thing they did not do, though having said that I'm they covered it with some other charge - but I digress until later. I can accept the fuel surcharge in principle - if the cost of providing a service increases it's natural that the consumer purchase cost increases too. Here's where it gets interesting though. The price of oil has since plummeted, trading in the $33-$50 range at the time of writing. So shouldn't that generate the opposite impact on cost, with travel service providers lowering or even abolishing the fuel surcharge since oil prices are as low or lower than they were when it started? Last December, Virgin Blue announced that it was ending its fuel surcharge on domestic flights and reducing it on international flights for (it claims) the "second time in as many months". I wonder if and how many others will do the same...

Handling charge / booking fee. It's become generally accepted that being able to purchase tickets (of any kind) early and not having to queue is classified as a privilege or premium service. I get that. Let's consider for a moment the flip side of this, why businesses invest in technology, it's to reduce the demand on, or for, human labour. In this particular case, if a business deploys a web site able to service X number of concurrent ticket purchases, they avoid needing to have (and pay for) Y people to front counter or phone sales, etc. The majority of ticket sales are now done online, not necessarily anymore because people CHOOSE to but because they NEED to if they're to stand a chance of getting a ticket at all. I put it to you that the premium service I alluded to earlier is now the standard/regular service, not to mention that businesses must surely recoup the development costs reasonably quickly from savings on wages and income from booking fees. That being true I wonder why punters still foot the bill for it a purported benefit that actually no longer exists.

Airport check-in fee. GRRRRR! This one is Ryanair-specific unless I've not spotted another airline doing it. Ryanair now charges you to check in at the airport, which you *must* do if you have luggage, which you also get charged for, so it's a double whammy. And there was no attempted explanation or justification as there was with the introduction of baggage charges. Let's do some simple maths. In 2008, Ryanair carried 58.7m passengers. The capacity of a "single class" Boeing 737-800 aircraft, of which makes up mostly if not entirely comprised, is 189 passengers. Keeping the calculations simple and the numbers conservative, let's round up to 200 passengers per [one-way] flight and assume that just a *quarter* of them must check in at the airport due to baggage - in reality the number checking in at the airport for one reason or another is higher (just ask any passenger standing in line to check-in while staff deal with passengers who've not prepaid their baggage). So that's 58.7m passengers * 0.25 airport check-in ratio * €5 charge = €78m! That's a lot of extra money earned through charging for a facility that is core to service delivery. I find it unfathomable that this hasn't been challenged by European bureaucracy yet, but even if it was, they [airline] would probably just invent another method to get this money...

Baggage charges. When these charges were introduced, they were heralded as a saving for a purported majority of passengers who allegedly travelled with cabin baggage only and were "subsidising" those who did have checked baggage. General seat prices would be reduced, with those who chose to bring checked baggage paying for the extra service. I actually did think this was a great thing, until my cynicism took over when I didn't see a difference. There's a conspiracy theory that a chef only needs to dip the [red wine] cork in the gravy to call it red wine sauce - in the same way I suppose an airline needs to make just one seat available at a cheaper price to be able to claim a price reduction. Then we come to the charges, X when you register your bag (online) before travelling otherwise it's Y which can be up to double the cost. I don't believe for a second that the labour, technology or any other cost, varies depending on the timing of when a customer deciding to check in a suitcase - the suitcase still goes on a conveyor belt, loaded on a trolley, then on the plane and offloaded at its destination. Oh but there's the staffing and effort required to process the bag at airport check in. GARBAGE! The customer is already PAYING for their airport check in, so I wonder what other spin can be put on it.

My parents visited me in Berlin from Dublin last year, flying with Ryanair. The charge for a suitcase each (don't forget the mandatory airport check in) came to €52 - that was €8 per baggage piece and €5 check-in fee per person per flight. I sent them off to Dunnes Stores to buy two small cabin sized suitcases at a total cost of €40 that they can use over again. At the time of writing, Ryanair now charges €10 for pre-booked baggage.

Card payment fee. This is the other one that really grates with me - it actually doesn't only apply to airlines anymore - it seems every merchant is doing this now and in my opinion it should be considered unfair business practice. In addition to all the booking and handling charges, airlines (and increasingly other sellers) have started charging a fee for using a card to pay them. I am fine with passing on reasonable cost of sales to the customer, but I have two issues with this. Firstly, the charge (around €5 or equivalent) isn't per transaction, it's per sector per person. Consider a family of 4 taking a return flight, that's an additional €40 charge for paying with a credit card. This might go up or down if you travel with Virgin Blue, as apparently (in a similar vein to baggage charges), there's additional effort in accepting payment for international flights than domestic if you read between the lines of their fees schedule. Which brings me to my second issue... for many airlines, payment by card the only option, particularly when purchasing online. If you're going to do that then GIVE CUSTOMERS AN ALTERNATIVE OPTION. Ryanair (and others I'm sure) renamed their credit card fee to read "payment handling fee", which to me reads like they'll charge regardless of payment method: so for example if you were to walk into their reservations center (assuming you can find one) and pay cash you might want to bring an extra couple of notes. It's a bit of a paradox really. A consumer must of course pay for a service to avail of it, but now they must pay the provider extra so they will accept their payment? I don't know about you, dear reader, but that's a new economic concept to me.

I know I've used Ryanair for many examples in this and I can just imagine the sort of public tongue lashing response their PR/media team would put out if and when they were to read it, lampooning both the author and the competition ("these are our terms, you're free to travel with whichever service you choose" ... sound familiar?) I express general observations and experience having been fortunate to travel quite a bit in my life so far. Many airlines now do the similar things and have similar practices - Ryanair was simply the innovator and it's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I do tip my hat to them for their creativity. At the same time, I reserve the right to not necessarily have to like the results...

After all that, there's also an argument that Ryanair and airlines of their kind, unlike many others, are an easy target for criticism because they do itemize their charges to the extent they do. I acknowledge that and so, credit where it's due, there is transparency to the customer (even if it's generally not completely transparent until they come to pay). I don't doubt that all these businesses and industries are operating within legislation so I wonder perhaps if that's the root problem... lack of explicit, clear, consistent legislation on what is and isn't appropriate practice from the consumer's perspective. The general public seems to accept it all one way or another - again I'm not sure if that's out of choice or necessity - so perhaps I'm just blowing hot air this time! In any case...

Rant over. Class dismissed :-)