New party game launched by airline/airport
I participated in a great new airport game this morning as I awaited my flight back to Blighty.
It's called Passenger Shuffle. Here's how it works. Announce that the flight to Stansted will leave from gate B55 (upstairs/upescaltor). There it is, clear as day, B55 on all the electronic boards, just an hour before scheduled take-off.
Seasoned travellers (yep, c'est moi) are already one step ahead and therefore first in the leper queue (that's non-priority, non-seat booked and flying without a child).
Self-satisfied smirks all round as those of us at the front look down the long queue stretching out behind us. No problem getting a choice of seat today.
Wrong. It's Passenger Shuffle time. Here's how it works.
What you do is change the gate number to D27 (yep, the one back down the stairs/ down the escalator), make no announcement but get a member of the handling company staff to tell people about the change - starting with those at the back. You know, the ones we smirked at.
Then work your way up the queue to the friendly souls at the front, idly chatting away, without a care in the world. After all, we're in line for a great choice of seat.
Unfortunately, by the time the message got through to us, the stragglers had gone. We did the Passenger Shuffle, but we were ...... at the back of the queue at gate D27. Marvellous. Oh what a jolly jape. Must play it again some time.
By the way - amazing coincidence on my way out on Sunday. Minding my own business in the non-priority/ childless etc. queue, my attention is caught by a man stridding towards me.
As he gets closer he smiles - and says "have you got any magazines this trip?"
Yep, it was one of the kind passengers who'd helped me out in November. Small world.
And no, I didn't have any magazines. Too stressful.

Go on - reserve that seat

Ryanair, the world’s favourite airline (it says), has introduced reserved seating.

The pre-booked service, which became available on all routes on January 10, costs €10 (each way) and includes priority boarding.

You can still pre-book priority boarding for €5 each way per passenger (which apparently is limited to 90 passengers per flight – bet you didn’t know that).

The last available full-year figures (to March 2011) showed the airline carried 72.1 million passengers. Its figures to March this year will undoubtedly be lower as Ryanair grounded 80 planes over the winter, so let’s say there’s a 5% drop – that’s still 68.5 million people carried to the year ending March 2012.

Based on my experiences of both Ryanair and easyjet, I would say around 15% of passengers currently book priority boarding – some 10.27 million people.

Let’s surmise that 50% of those will go for the new reserved seating/ priority boarding option – and we get to the grand total of €51.38 million extra profit a year.

This new development is no great surprise to an old traveller like what I am.

Michael O will undoubtedly have a long list of more wheezes to extract more dosh from punters.

Next? Forget the €1 to go to the loo – people would just train themselves to avoid using the onboard facilities.

But my money is on a fee for carry-on bags. Over the last couple of years I have seen many, many occasions when, on a full flight, overhead space simply runs out and some bags end up in the hold.

So, look out for the combined €15 each way fee for reserved seat, priority boarding and space for your trolley-dolley bag.

You heard it here first.

Flights £37, total cost £57
Just booked my latest return flights to the Iberian continent.
Cheaper than a day-return rail card to London from the countryside where I reside.
The two flights worked out at £36.98 (65% of total cost) - a bargain.
Taxes, fee to check-in online (using my ink to print out the boarding cards!) and credit card fees woked out at £20 (35% of the total) - turning a bargain into a good deal.
I know the authorities have the credit card or "administration fee" matter in hand but when will something be done about paying for the privilege of saving airlines costs (online check-in)?