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Cheap flight offers don't always add up

Britain's Sunday Times has published an article confirming what many regular travellers have suspected for some time - that flying with a scheduled airline like British Airways is often cheaper than booking with Ryanair or EasyJet.

The reason is simple - it's the plethora of extras that the likes of Ryanair has been introducing that pushes their fares so high. The Sunday Times gives some convincing examples.

A single passenger flying to Venice for Christmas on December 23-30th, and checking in one bag, pays £89.30 with BA. The same journey with Ryanair would cost £109.52 plus £20 extra for bags and a £10 handling fee, albeit we are not quite sure what's being handled! That's a total of £139.52, a massive 56% extra with Ryanair. EasyJet is also more expensive at this time to Venice - £121.62, or over 36% pricier than BA.

It's the additional fees that do it, as the newspaper shows, with the example of two adults flying to Barcelona for a long weekend from 31st August to 3rd September. It's a total of £278 with BA, including checking in two bags on the flight. Ryanair initially looks cheaper at £248.86 but, add in the bag charges at £40 and a £20 handling fee and the Irish airline is suddenly more expensive.

The additional fees charged by the likes of Ryanair have been controversial for some time. The airline claims that the full fare is always advertised and is not hidden or misleading. This is hard to believe given newspaper advertisements run by Ryanair for flights to Portugal (Porto) for £5 one way. In small print at the bottom is the comment: "Fares exclude optional fees/charges" but the prominent £5 headline is not qualified in any way.

The optional and not-so-optional fees and charges mean the so-called budget flights can be surprisingly expensive even if, on average, the budget fliers do work out cheaper than airlines like British Airways.

The industry affairs manager of the Air Transport Users Council, James Fremantle, says in the Sunday Times' story: "Overall, if you look at at the fares, low-cost airlines are still the cheaper option. However, many of the these extras seem arbitrary charges not related to the cost of service."

This 'cost of service' seems a key point. Fly with EasyJet and the booking fee is a flat £2.95. Ryanair, however, charges £10 per person, so a family of four could be forking out £40 just to book on-line (the only way you can book, incidentally). So, unless Ryanair are being ludicrously ripped off by credit and debit card companies, it appears their charges are arbitrary, as James Fremantle suggests.

And if you really want to rack up the extras, stray above the measly Ryanair 15kg baggage allowance and you are really paying out. In contrast, a BA flight cost includes a 23kg bag, reserved seats, the cost of using a debit card to book and snacks and refreshments.

If you are flying with ski equipment, the costs escalate further. A flight for four with skis on February 20-27th 2010 with two bags and two pairs of skis would cost £513 with BA. Ryanair's cheapest flight is advertised at £521.96, slightly more than BA. But add on the £120 ski carrying charge; £40 for the bags and a £40 handling charge and suddenly Ryanair costs 40% more at £721.96.

Another factor to take into account is the quality of service. The BBC presenter David Dimbleby, who was marooned at Stansted recently with 700 other passengers, is quoted as saying: "If I can possibly avoid it I'll never fly Ryanair again. They treat their customers with contempt. It's a false economy."

To judge by the examples given, it isn't even an economy on many of the quoted flights. It clearly pays to shop around and you should certainly browse the range of travel deals from this leading travel website.

And remember, with Ryanair you have to work very hard to calculate all the extra charges at the time of booking. Those 'booking fees' can soon add up.