THE WEATHER
Edition 332
B
Friday 28th July 2017
AIR FARE BATTLE
udget airline Ryanair says that a price war is on the horizon, as it said it could slash prices by up to nine percent on some routes as competition hots up amongst carriers in the next few months. The comment from Europe's largest carrier by passenger numbers follows similar comments about price pressures from Ryanair's rivals in recent weeks. Competition was growing as airlines switched capacity from Turkey and North Africa, Ryanair said, with Spain one of the major beneficiaries. The average Ryanair fare between March and June of this year went up by a percent to just over 40 euros, although Ryanair said this was a blip due to the much stronger Easter trading.
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Easter, a peak-time for holidaymakers, fell in April this year, inside Ryanair's reporting period. In 2016, it fell in March. The airline said it expected fares to fall by five percent in the six months to the end of September and by eight percent in the six months to the end of March 2018.
"We expect the pricing environment to remain very competitive", said chief executive Michael O'Leary. EasyJet and Wizz Air have both said that fares will be under pressure this summer. Ryanair executives also repeated warnings of major flight disruptions between the UK and Europe if Brexit
talks fail to agree a bi-lateral deal on flights. The airline has warned it may cancel flights and move operations abroad if there is no agreement well in advance of Brexit. "We need clarity so that we can plan our schedules for 2019," chief financial officer Neil Sorahan told the BBC.
ANTONIO THE HERO
recently -graduated nurse from Murcia University helped to save the life of a British passenger on a flight from Edinburgh to Alicante-Elche airport last Saturday evening. Antonio Cayuela Costa was heading back home to Murcia when he responded to a tannoy call from the captain that a passenger was needed help from any health professional that was on board. Antonio, from Totana, joined forces with another nurse who happened to be on the flight, to help an eld-
erly female Scottish passenger who had suffered an apparent cardiac arrest. “It was difficult to help her in such a confined area”, said Antonio, “but along with the other nurse, we performed a cardio-pulmonory resuscitation, and the passenger’s condition improved”. The captain of the Vueling/Iberia flight asked if the plane needed to make an emergency landing, but with the passenger stabilised, the flight continued for another hour before landing at Alicante-Elche airport, and she was transferred by
ambulance to hospital. The work of Antonio, and the other nurse as well as the flight attendents was rewarded with a round of
applause from the passengers , with Murcia College of Nursing “praising Antonio’s impeccable professionalism”.