Irish Examiner view: Extra costs will lead to fear of flying

Fears the golden era of liberating cheap air travel is coming to a close

There are few of us not yearning for some form of travel.

Freedom of choice to travel by air at manageable prices is a fundamental requirement for an island economy. 

Even as we struggle again with the implications of rising pandemic infection rates there are few who aren’t yearning to travel, such is the voyager nation we have become.

Flying used to be beyond the financial reach of many, before the arrival of the lower cost and better value pioneers of the ’70s and ’80s.

Freddie Laker and his Skytrain across the Atlantic driven out of business in part by predatory pricing by big national carriers; Michael O’Leary’s Ryanair which started operating in 1985; Stelios Haji-Ioannou and easyJet 25 years ago.

Since then millions have become regular international visitors and that has been hugely welcome in expanding horizons and commercial opportunities. 

But there are antagonistic forces arrayed against air travel and we may come to reach a realisation that the past 50 years have been a golden era of liberation which is now coming to a close.

Surcharging customers

Finance ministers around the world look opportunistically at the prospects of further surcharging passengers as a means of clawing back revenues for battered budgets.

They are joined by airport authorities similarly strapped following two disastrous years of reduced traffic. 

In 2019, Cork and Dublin handled a record 35.5m passengers. Last year, this number plummeted to just under 8m leading Basil Geoghan, chairman of DAA (formerly the Dublin Airport Authority), to warn that predictions of a recovery by 2023 were way too optimistic. 2025 would be a “more realistic” forecast, probably, he said. 

Numbers need to be approaching 30m annually to bring the business back into the black.

He also commented that current airport landing charges were too low in comparison to European competitors:

Our business simply cannot countenance a third year of enforced below-cost prices and regulatory inaction.

Customers judge a flight by its check-out price, but these are a confusing mish-mash of governmental levies creaming off money for general expenditure and landing charges which exist to cover operator costs, infrastructure, and services.

We don’t have to look far for an example of a greedy government at work in matters of aviation. 

Heathrow (LHR), a favourite jumping off point for people flying internationally, has an Air Passenger Duty Tax introduced in 1993.  It has increased by 539% in 28 years. 

For good measure there is also a passenger service charge. It’s a double English with the consumer on the receiving end. 

Just to complete the happy news, Britain's Civil Aviation Authority is to increase its fees for passengers from LHR by up to 53% from January 1.

High demand

Two other upward pressures on flight costs are in play. The first is that there is too much demand chasing reduced capacity, which is a win-win for any sales director. 

And then there is the temptation to wrap all these potential increases in a virtue-signalling, let’s save the planet, green agenda.

Environmentalists have long had the global warming vapour trail of airlines in their sights, and they sense that this is their moment.

Britain’s behavioural insights team the inelegantly named “nudge unit” believes that reaching for net zero means reducing public appetite for high carbon activities such as air travel. 

An initial foray into this contentious area might be proposals to place a levy upon “frequent-flyers”.

This battle front is only now being opened. But one outcome will be certain. The rich and influential will continue to fly. It is the rest of us who will be squeezed.