Ryanair has put the fares of its new routes from Israel on its website. For today, the company is offering one-way flights from Tel Aviv to Cyprus for €20 on certain future dates. The company website lists two airports from which Ryanair operates its 19 flights from Israel: Timna (listed as Eilat) and Ben Gurion (listed as Tel Aviv). Prices for the flights taking off from Israel vary according to the destinations and dates.
A flight from Tel Aviv to Milan (the route begins in October) cost €51-80 one-way; in other words, a roundtrip ticket costs at least €111.
A flight from Tel Aviv to Baden-Baden, Germany starts at a similar price, i.e. €110 roundtrip. This price of €50-60 one-way includes an option to upgrading the ticket to Leisure Plus, including up to 20 kilos of baggage, a choice of seat, and preferred check-in, for €90-98 one-way, instead of the €60 base price. A Business Plus flexible ticket (including changes in dates, for example), including up 20 kilos of baggage and a fast track at the airport, costs €130 one-way.
A flight from Tel Aviv to Cracow, Poland, for example, starts at €43 one-way, and from €60 for the return flight. The same upgrade will raise the prices to €81 and €113, respectively, from Tel Aviv, and €91 and €130 for a return flight. A roundtrip ticket to Cracow and back, including 20 kilos of baggage, will therefore cost €172, or €103 without baggage.
As promised by the company, one-way flights for €20 on the Tel Aviv-Cyprus route can be found today until midnight. We found a one-way flight in early July for €20 on Saturday June 4 and on May 15, for example.
Flights from Tel Aviv to Paphos, Cyprus will start from €87 one-way and from €174 for the return flight, i.e. €261 roundtrip without baggage (other than hand luggage), and €336 including 20 kilos of baggage per passenger (for those traveling during Passover, for example).
Flights from Eilat are cheaper. For example, a flight from Ovda to Budapest in November starts at €43 one-way without baggage and from €74 including baggage, meaning that a roundtrip ticket on the Ovda-Budapest route will cost €86 without baggage and €148 with up to 20 kilos of baggage. A flight from Ovda to Milan will start at €51 one-way without baggage and €82 one-way including baggage.
On the format in which low-cost airlines operate, the rationale making it possible to get low prices is ordering as long in advance as possible, while paying close attention to the dates, because the price changes when the date is moved even one day forward or backward. As seen in the above examples, baggage raises the price substantially, so if you have only hand luggage, this keeps the price down.
Ryanair's bargain launch campaign including a one-way flight for €80 is genuine and meets the company's promise, which raises questions about the bargain offered by Sun D'or at the beginning of the week. The company advertised that it would offer flights to various destinations starting at $49 one-way.
The company said that the bargain includes a stock of more than 2,000 tickets, but a disappointed reader contacted "Globes," and complained that 45 minutes after the campaign began, she had not found a single ticket at the promised price. The beginning price she found was 2.5-3 times the promised price. The company explained to "Globes" that there were over 2,500 tickets available, and that "Due to peak demand for the bargain, the tickets at the bargain prices had all been bought within a few hours." The same disappointed reader who contacted "Globes" wondered whether the bargain was real, saying, "If the company promised that the prices would be valid for three days, it should have allocate more tickets to the bargain and prepared accordingly, or else should have limited the bargain to two hours. It's not possible for thousands of tickets to be purchased in 45 minutes.
"The company's sales call center did not answer calls at the time. A message left at the call center, which promised to return the call within three hours, was ignored. Only many hours later did I receive an SMS message telling me that the tickets had all been sold. It seems very strange to me, and I have the feeling that the company published a bargain on terms it could not fulfill just to get people to enter its website."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on March 9, 2017
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