Fly to Rome for the price of a Pizza...

Well what an interesting start to the main holiday season it has been here in the UK. At the time of writing, it is the end of June and already we have started to see reports of so called over-tourism coming from parts of Europe. Venice has announced its new tourist tax with hefty fines for those not paying it and destinations like Greece (and Rhodes in particular) are already talking more about spreading the economic benefit (and burden) of tourism more evenly throughout the year.

Our airports have seen chaotic scenes over recent weeks and there is a feeling that these scenes will be replicated as we enter the traditional summer holiday period. The airlines had ramped up their flights for the summer but upon realising that the airports were clearly unable to cope with 2019 flight levels, have subsequently had to reduce their flight schedules causing frustration and chaos.

These problems are not unique to the UK. It’s being replicated all over the world. Large numbers of redundancies were made during the past two years in the aviation, tourism and hospitality sectors as companies sought to shore up their outgoing expenses in light of the global tourism industry entering a form of hibernation due to covid. Sadly, as a result, many of those made redundant have left the industry and this has created a huge staff shortage in many areas.

So, this summer there will be scenes of chaos and crowding at airports all over the world as flights are cancelled, baggage stacks up and of course prices increase due to fewer flights.

The war in Ukraine has led to fuel rises which are unparalleled in recent memory. Whilst we are seeing the effects of this at the fuel pumps and in our energy bills, the full force of these cost increases has yet to really show itself in aviation. But it is coming. Airlines tend to “hedge” on fuel up to a year in advance in order to protect themselves from any major price fluctuations. This means that most airlines hedged in 2021 before the massive increases in oil prices came into effect. I predict that flight prices in 2023 onwards are about to increase significantly and of course, the airlines will be hedging at much higher rates this year for 2023 onwards too.

“did you not figure that it was wrong when you could fly 1,200 miles to Rome for less than the cost of a pizza?”

And this is not a bad thing. I always felt that the value in a 1,200 mile flight from Manchester to Rome was significantly more than the fare of £15 charged by certain low fare airlines. Those prices in no way reflected the carbon emissions not indeed the value of such a trip. I always thought that one day in the future our grandchildren will be unforgiving when they ask us, against a backdrop of environmental catastrophe, “did you not figure that it was wrong when you could fly 1,200 miles to Rome for less than the cost of a pizza?”. It was and is wrong.

Two Days in Rio

Copacabana beach, Rio

I attended a major travel industry event in São Paulo recently. It was my first time in a while having the opportunity to meet face to face with industry colleagues and it was also my first time in São Paulo. These events are incredibly valuable as I get to have 60+ pre-arranged meetings in 3 days in one place. It’s highly time efficient. As were are to be featuring Rio in this edition of the magazine and also on lowseasontraveller.com, I wanted to take the opportunity to visit Rio during the low season period to understand for myself what the low season experience is like in this famed city.

There are two main ways of getting from São Paulo to Rio. Flying takes less than 2 hours and costs about £450 return. Very time efficient if like me you only have 2 full days in Rio but…we know that these short flights are not the best environmentally. This is especially true when there is a good alternative - buses. The bus journey from São Paulo to Rio takes just under 6 hours and costs £10 return or, if like me you want to push the boat out, £16 for “Business Class”. The buses are frequent, run from city centre to city centre, are super comfortable with good wifi, charging points, air con, cool stops along the way and you are surrounded by locals. Despite being in both São Paulo and Rio bus stations late at night, I never felt threatened. The whole experience was really quite wonderful.

As for Rio itself, well, she is one beautiful city! I have a natural love of cities which have a beach. I love Brisbane, Valencia, Cape Town etc and Rio is one of the most picturesque cities you could ever hope to see. Picture endless stretches of glorious white sandy beaches against a backdrop of towering steep green mountains. I spent a fun 2 days in Rio and learnt a lot about what you should and shouldn’t do during a low season stay in the city. You can find out more about the experience in our Rio feature and in our podcast and live broadcasts from Rio where we caught up with some locals to get their advice.

But it is nearly time for my small family to take our break. We are heading over to North Wales in August as, even the most die hard of low season travellers like me, sometimes has to travel in the kids summer holidays. Yes, we’ll have to roll the dice with the UK weather but at least we won’t have to face the airport chaos I guess.

Wishing you a wonderful summer (or winter depending on your location) and looking forward to catching up again in October.

Ged recording the Rio podcast, Copacabana Beach, Rio