'Business as usual' for commercial airlines as flight prices for refugees fluctuate wildly

Ukrainian refugees Nadiia and her niece Yana are currently staying with Dubliner Ciaran Murphy in Warsaw.

Commercial airlines have been accused of "profiteering on the backs of human misery" as flight prices from Poland to Ireland fluctuate wildly due to increased demand. 

MEP Billy Kelleher has called on the Government to charter commercial passenger jets to carry Ukrainian refugees to Ireland due to the high costs of commercial airlines. 

Prices are varying from as little as €30 per person to as high of €300 per person, depending on demand in particular locations.

Added to that, refugees are being charged about €125 each for airport taxes and other charges on top of the cost of their flights, and then extra for their bags.

Dubliner Ciarán Murphy, who runs the Academy of Language in Warsaw, Poland, said ticket pricing was holding up efforts to help refugees by himself and a small group of fellow Irish nationals.

It means refugees being delayed for days in temporary accommodation in Poland as they wait for prices to their chosen destination to fall. 

“I can be on an airline's site one minute and then the price of the flight will be up by another €50 in an hour, and up by a few hundred maybe in a day.

“It’s very much business as normal for commercial airlines and I don’t understand why.

There is clearly demand for seats but this is from people who are running for their lives from a war zone.”

Mr Murphy has helped 13 refugees get to Ireland but said he could help more if flight costs were more predictable.

“We have a GoFundMe page through which we fund the flights, but if we have to pay over the odds, then it makes it harder for us to help as many refugees as we would like,” he added.

The GoFundMe is almost at €7,000 - just shy of it's €8,000 target.

MEP Billy Kelleher said Ireland should immediately start chartering flights to and from Poland.

He said it was wrong that airlines were charging commercial rates to refugees and they should remember the EU had pumped millions into the industry because of Covid.

“Flights are getting very dear from airports near the Ukrainian border,” he said.

“There's clearly an increase in demand when you have millions of people coming in over the border into the European Union and they want to fly on to other destinations.

"But this is a humanitarian crisis and the idea now that we would have airlines, potentially commercially exploiting what is a human tragedy is something that I find completely unacceptable.

“And this is despite the fact that the European Union supported airlines in the very recent past during the Covid downturn.

“That they're potentially profiteering on the backs of human tragedy is something that is completely unacceptable.”

He added: “The very least we should expect is that airlines would play to their basic morality and charge people clearly fleeing persecution in a war zone at a break-even rate.

“I think governments need to get directly involved by chartering planes themselves.

“And Ireland should be doing that now.”

A spokesperson for Aer Lingus said: “Aer Lingus is liaising with the Department of Foreign Affairs to see if there is any assistance we can provide.”

The Taoiseach’s Office, and the departments of Foreign Affairs, Justice and Transport were asked if there wdere any plans to charter flights.

Ryanair was asked for a comment.