Aviation Report

The Q Bag Tag is a permanent electronic bag tag designed to facilitate a faster and easier baggage check-in at domestic airports.  There's no longer a need to attach a temporary bag tag each time you fly domestically - just drop your bags and go.  What's more, if you check-in online or with your mobile before you arrive at the airport, you'll be able to go directly to the Bag Drop. With a sleek design by Marc Newson, each tag contains world-first technology that synchronises your details on your boarding pass or Qantas card with your baggage using the RFID chip technology. Q Bag Tags can be purchased for $49.95 or 7,000 Frequent Flyer points. Introduced by Quantas earlier last year, this idea of a permanent bag tag is now pushed by Skyteam. The alliance wants to make it a project for all its companies with a proof of concept financed by 75 000 € from AFKL. It would be the first time that a marketing idea and product development is done jointly as an alliance wide pro...

Transport minister Leo Varadkar has admitted that the Government is powerless to prevent the loss of Aer Lingus's valuable slots at Heathrow Airport as the sale of the Government's 25 per cent stake hits turbulence. "There is very little we can do to protect the Aer Lingus slots at Heathrow Airport," he told the Dail last week. "At the time of privatisation, having a golden share might have been a good idea -- but there is nothing to prevent the company from leasing out the slots. "This could be done by the board at any time. The sale of the slots would just require a special motion." Access to prime-time landing slots at Heathrow Airport is seen as massively strategically important for Irish interests. Early morning and early evening landing slots at the airport make it easier for firms to do business here -- given that many travellers from the US and elsewhere connect to Ireland from Heathrow. Aer Lingus is the third-biggest owner of sl...

Budget airlines including Ryanair and easyJet have agreed to include the cost of paying by debit card in the headline price of tickets - ending a scam that made it almost impossible to pay for tickets without a charge. Aer Lingus, BMI Baby, Eastern Airways, easyJet, Flybe, German Wings, Jet2, Lufthansa, Ryanair, Thomas Cook, Thomson (TUI) and Wizz Air have been forced to undertake the changes after an Office of Fair Trading consumer law investigation. By December this year, the airlines will have to include the price of paying by debit card in the headline price of air tickets. They will also have to explain any additional fee for paying by credit card up front so that charges are not sprung on passengers at the end of a lengthy booking process. The OFT estimated that debit and credit card surcharging in the airline sector has been costing consumers £300million a year. Airline regulations means that ticket prices have to include all unavoidable charges. But in some cases, ai...

IN MANY types of face-to-face retailing, it pays to size up your customer and tailor your offering accordingly. In a 2006 study of Fulton fish market in New York, Kathryn Graddy of Brandeis University found that dealers regularly charged Asian buyers less than whites because the Asians had proved, over time, more willing to reject high prices, and readier to band together to boycott dealers who ripped them off. The internet, by allowing anonymous browsing and rapid price-comparing, was supposed to mean low, and equal, prices for all. Now, however, online retailers are being offered software that helps them detect shoppers who can afford to pay more or are in a hurry to buy, so as to present pricier options to them or simply charge more for the same stuff. Cookies stored in shoppers’ web browsers may reveal where else they have been looking, giving some clues as to their income bracket and price-sensitivity. A shopper’s internet address may be linked to his physical address, let...