Dublin Airport Car Hire|Low cost car hire in Dublin

Aer Lingus announced this week plans to cut six hundred and seventy six jobs by 2011. The move is being made in order to reduce yearly operating expenses by ninety seven million euro.

At present Aer Lingus employs three thousand and nine hundred people. They have stated that they believe the majority of lay offs will be on a voluntary redundancy basis. They added however that the cuts would be made on a compulsory basis if unions were not agreeable.

SIPTU spoke out against the cuts today labeling them “draconian”. Speaking on behalf of SIPTU Gerry McCormack believed the decision to be an overreaction to the current economic climate. The association will hold meetings next week with shop stewards to discuss the matter further.

Aer Lingus believe that they must “fundamentally change” their work practices with pay cuts of ten percent being sought on salaries over thirty five thousand. They added that further cuts may be necessary if the plan is not working out as 2011 looms closer.

Ryanair has come in for some strong criticism from the Consumers Association of Ireland due to increases in their baggage check in charges which are due to come into place in October. The new charges mean that the cost of checking in a bag will rise by fifty percent and the fee for a second bag could rise by as much as a whopping two hundred and fifty percent.

Online baggage check in will increase by five euro while checking in a bag at the airport will increase by ten euro.  The cost of carrying sports gear will go up by ten euro for online check ins and also for Airport check ins. There is also an increase in the excess weight charge rising by five euro per kilo.

Speaking on behalf of the Consumers Association of Ireland, Dermott Jewell stated that the new charges “beggared belief”. He went on to stress the effect these costs would have on hard hit families. He believes many things described by Ryanair as optional are in fact necessities.

Ryanair pointed to the fact that it is still free for passengers to bring on hand luggage weighing less the ten kilograms. It was also noted that fares have dropped by around twenty percent in the last year.

Ryanair announced the companies’ first deficit in over ten years today. One hundred and sixty nine million was lost. The deficit was due to the airlines thirty percent stake in Aer Lingus which reported a loss of two hundred and twenty two million.

Not taking Aer Lingus into account Ryanair exceeded expectations by announcing a one hundred and five million euro profit despite a fuel bill which has gone up by fifty nine percent. The average amount earned per passenger dropped by eight percent with the average airfare dropping to forty euro.

Passenger numbers were up by fifteen percent for the year. Ancillary revenue rose by a whopping twenty three percent. This includes the sale of food, scratch cards, gift items etc. This is an area that now makes up twenty percent of the airlines entire revenue.

Michael O’ Leary referred to Aer Lingus as a “sideshow for Ryanair” while Michael Cawley of Ryanair stated that there were no current plans to make a further bid for the airline. He went on to say that Ryanair will offer less flights from Dublin Airport if the airports passenger charges continue to rise.

Aer Lingus announced an excellent deal today where you can grab a flight from Ireland to the UK and just pay taxes and charges. Passengers have up until midnight on the 4th of June to book their flights.

Flights are available from Dublin Airport to, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham. Travel dates are available between the 17th of June and the 22nd of October.

The offer is also available from other Irish Airports such as Cork Airport where you can fly to Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham as well as

From Shannon Airport to Heathrow
From Knock Airport to Gatwick

We have plenty of excellent summer deals available here at Dublin Airport car hire. With lots of extra suppliers added to our booking engine recently the range of choice and value is better than ever.

Last Friday 14th May Ryanair praised the decision by the Spanish Government to abolish airport taxes for any airline that manages to up or maintain the passenger numbers it achieved in the latter half of 2008 for the same period the following year in Spains biggest airports.

The news was warmly welcomed by Ryanair seeing it as gesture towards increasing tourism in Spain in these difficult financial times. Other recent developments to help tourism around Europe include

• Regional Airport tax removed in Greece
• Air customer tax removed in Belgium
• Removal of twelve euro air customer tax in Holland

The Irish low cost airline has now called on its own government to follow suit and abolish its ten euro passenger duty tax which came into existence on the 1st of April. The tax has been described as “tourism suicide” by Ryanair officials.

Michael O’Leary called the tax “stupid” and asked the Irish government to look at what other European countries had done to help tourism in their countries. O’Leary also called on the DAA to reduce charges by thirty percent at Dublin, Shannon and Cork Airports.