Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – October 2023
Eoghan Corry talks travel this month with the latest travel news at home and abroad.
Ryanair’s spat with Dublin airport has wider implications, Belfast gets a boost, more winter routes from our regional airports, and how the conflict in the Middle East may affect Ireland’s inbound tourism industry – Eoghan Corry has this and more in this month’s travel talking points.
Pray for Israel, the occupied territories and for travel
Image by Walkerssk, PixabayThe news from Israel is bad for everyone who loves travel. Cruise ships were diverted, flights cancelled and airlines halted their schedules. A group of fifty Irish pilgrims were caught in the Holy land at the time of the outbreak, a number that might have been higher were it not for the Rugby World Cup, but thankfully they were able to get home early.
El Al flights continued, including their 3 times weekly Dublin service, but crucially so did some other airlines such as Ryanair (although they do not have services to Ireland) and Turkish, the Irish connection favourite.
For those of us who get a chance to ponder what happens next the picture is worrying. The last big war in 2006 caused expensive cancellations for both pilgrims, airlines and tour operators alike, and the impact took several years to overcome.
Ireland’s inbound tourism industry depends on the USA for 30% of its income. Historically, the key USA market stops travelling as reaction to the Middle East rather than other conflicts which seem more remote from Europe to them.
Election time in the USA is already regarded as a slow booking year. Time will tell if the two factors will combine to slow things down. Airline shares are already down 26.3pc this year because the recovery has not taken the shape people would like. Tine to say a prayer for Israel, the occupied territories and for travel.
Norovirus makes a comeback
All that hand washing should have prevented our old enemy of the ocean, Norovirus from making a comeback, but it has struck more cruise ships in 2023 than it did before the pandemic, 13 up to the end of September.
Cruise companies are good at handling viral outbreaks, but it could do with better press after the pandemic. Health workers are also being told to brace for a Christmas Norovirus rush, so it is not just cruise ships which have been affected.
Dublin city’s hotel scene gets a boost
Good news for Dublin is that Travelodge is coming with more hotels, after their 393 bedroom hotel on Townsend Street provided much needed relief for the summer bedroom squeeze in the city. They have acquired a site on Usher’s Quay and plan to grow their Dublin city stock to 1,500 bedrooms.
Not so much cruise control
The last three cruise ship launches of 2023 are three of the juiciest. First up is the super luxurious Seven Seas Grandeur, who will sell their best suite to anyone with €11k a night to spare. Then comes the giant 5,400 passenger Carnival Jubilee, and mid size 2,900 passenger Celebrity Ascent.
Something even bigger is on its way in January, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, with a capacity of 7,600 passengers, 20 decks and 6% larger than Wonder of the Seas.
When you add 2,350 crew members, that gives Icon of the Seas a population similar to Longford and a position among the top 50 most populous towns in Ireland. Icon will sail seven-night Caribbean voyages throughout 2024.
Read: How to choose the right cruise
Ryanair’s rumble
Ryanair’s rumble with Dublin airport is more than a two-euro tussle, as the story was presented to the media. The arrival of Ryanair’s new B737 Max aircraft is slower than anticipated, one aircraft arrival rather than two each week, so when Michael O’Leary took a scissors to the schedule, it was an easy decision to move two aircraft out of Dublin.
Equally convenient was chopping Charleroi by three based aircraft, coincidentally just as a series of pilots strikes impacted schedules there.
The row made for a great radio spat between erstwhile colleagues Eddie Wilson and Kenny Jacobs, which generated more heat than light. Ryanair pay €7.80 a passenger at present. Aer Lingus pay about the same. Oddly, we did not notice any complaints from Lynne.
17 routes cancelled
View this post on Instagram
After the shouting stopped, we are left to count the cost of lost routes. Cruise ship stop Genoa is gone, which now has to be accessed through Nice or Milan. So is the beautiful northern Spanish province of Asturias, a captivating place to start the Camino, and Billund beside Legoland park was a great family option.
The fairy-tale walled town of Carcassonne is gone, as is the cheapest continental town on the schedule, Nimes, affordable precisely because it was so unknown most of the seats could not be sold. How many, if any of these, will return to the summer schedules?
The full list of cancelled routes is: Asturias, Billund, Bournemouth, Carcassonne, Castellón, Genoa, Klagenfurt, Kosice, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Palanga, Palermo, Plovdiv, Santiago, Sibiu, Suceava, and Szczecin.
An unexpected spinoff from the spat, Ryanair have kept their oldest and noisiest aircraft in Dublin and moved the slicker and more silent ones elsewhere, which could lead to a few sleepless nights for Kenny Jacobs, as well as those neighbours who are getting lots of airtime for their complaints about nocturnal insomnia.
Belfast may have the bargains
Dublin airport’s book rate is €8.52, which is reduced further so that, in reality, low cost airlines rarely go head to head with each other, so keep an eye on prices from Belfast this winter.
New routes to Lanzarote, Porto and Turin form Ryanair will fill much needed gaps on the airport’s destination board.
New routes always come cheap with an introduction incentive for passengers, but there might be good prices elsewhere as well: Ryanair also go head to head with Easyjet on other routes, including the trunk routes Alicante, Faro and Málaga. Belfast-Alicante has a third low cost carrier on the route, Jet2. Also in Belfast, Easyjet have a surprise new route of their own: Hurghada on Egypt’s Red Sea.
Winter warmers for Cork, Shannon and Knock
View this post on Instagram
With Dublin losing 16 routes, some of the winter action will be at other airports. Cork have new winter routes to Barcelona, Fuerteventura, Lyon and Tenerife while Knock also has a new Tenerife route. All that should mean better prices, but fares for Málaga from Cork are higher than form Dublin for some key dates. Is there something happening down south we should be
aware of?
Read: Fuereteventura travel guide: Top things to do and where to stay
Frequencies to Malaga, Faro and Alicante are now higher than pre-pandemic, even though traffic in general is still a few percentage points short of 2019 levels. Alicante is 20% ahead of pre-pandemic, and frequencies have been increased again for winter 2023 and is now on a par with Lanzarote.
It is a long way from becoming the new Faro or Málaga, with half the capacity, but it shows that our tourists are becoming more traditional by the year.
Missed last months post? Catch it here:
Eoghan Corry talks travel – September 2023
