Costly flights for fans
NORTHERN Ireland football fans who have not already booked flights for the team's away games in the World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign face huge fare increases.
Fans have reported one airline’s prices nearly trebling within hours of last Wednesday’s announcement of the dates for the matches.
Last night, the Irish Football Association (IFA) said it would be laying on additional charter flights – which it said would be “more reasonably priced” – and the Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters’ Clubs said it was considering chartering flights.
Northern Ireland face away matches against the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, San Marino and Poland over the next two years.
One fan contacted the News Letter after prices for Northern Ireland’s first away match of the campaign, against Slovakia, had more than doubled within two hours of the fixtures announcement.
Two weeks ago, prior to the fixtures being revealed, return tickets from Dublin to the Slovakian capital Bratislava with Ryanair cost 93. Yesterday, the same tickets – for flights departing on September 5 and returning two days later – were selling for more than 270.
Flying with Skyeurope – the only other airline that flies from Ireland to Bratislava – on the same dates costs 304.
Gary McAllister, spokesman for the amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters’ Clubs, said: “There is a likelihood that we will arrange charter flights but we will meet this week to discuss it.”
The IFA’s head of marketing Geoff Wilson revealed: “We will be announcing details of some charter flights in the coming weeks and they will be more reasonably priced.”
A spokesman for Ryanair said it did not increase prices when a popular match was announced but said that once the cheapest seats were sold, the prices would naturally rise for the remaining seats.
“Because fans booked quickly, the cheapest seats got snapped up but we did not increase the charges because of the match,” he said.
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Monday 28 May 2012
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