Ryanair and Aer Lingus accused of World Cup rip off

The price of Paris-bound airfares with both Ryanair and Aer Lingus has gone up within minutes for flights on November 18, when Ireland play France in the World Cup play-off.

The basic cost of the outbound journey with Ryanair on November 17th or 18th had increased by 500 percent between 12:45 and 1:30pm yesterday, just 20 minutes after the draw was announced.

The basis price of a Ryanair flight from Dublin to Beauvais, which has a price tag of  €4.99 on Friday November 20th, costs €124.99 on the day of the crunch match.

Aer Lingus has also reported excessive costs, with the current price from Dublin to Paris currently priced at €164.99.  If you were to fly to Paris with the airline two days later it would cost only €24.99 while the homeward journey 24 hours later costs nothing at all.

Spokesman for Fine Gael’s, John O’Mahony, condemned the airlines and said that football fans would rightfully feel aggrieved by this obvious and unjustifiable rip off.

He believes that prices were off the wall and said that while people expected some price increase, the extent of these increases was ridiculous.

Aer Lingus has since defended the price increase, saying that it had come down to supply and demand, and an extra flight has been scheduled for the day.

Ryanair has announced that it will also operate additional flights to Paris for the game, and has confirmed that seats on extra flight would be at least €20 cheaper than Aer Lingus, but warned seats would sell fast.