Cheap airlines tickets - don't be fooled by them

OK so the accompanying video doesn't have a great deal to do with France perhaps - apart from the fact that over the years an increasing number of foreign-based budget airlines have opened up the market by flying into (mainly) provincial destinations.

Ryanair and EasyJet lead the pack of course but there's also FlyBe, Vueling, German Wings, Air Berlin and many, many more. It all depends on where you want to go really.

But one thing many of them share in common are those so-called "hidden costs".

The initial price of the ticket looks like great value.

Only once you start including airport tax, excess baggage charges, the cost of getting to and from an airport which is often miles away from where you actually want to be (The Paris airport which Ryanair uses to "serve" the French capital is actually a good 70 kilometres away) the real "price" you end up paying is far from the original "bargain".

Fascinating Aïda (screenshot from YouTube video)

And that's very much the message behind this hilarious song from the British comedy singing group and satirical cabaret act, Fascinating Aïda.

"Cheap flights" might be a few years old now and contain some rather ribald lyrics for those of you who are faint-hearted (this version comes with subtitles to help you cope with the accent) but it's hysterically funny and - well let's just say - spot on.

Enjoy.

Investigation to be launched into passenger revolt at Toulouse airport

France's junior minister of transport, Thierry Mariani, has called for an enquiry into the events of Saturday evening at Toulouse's Blagnac international airport which saw passengers aboard a Moroccan lowcost Jet4you 'plane stage what has widely been reported as a "mutiny".

Jet4you 'plane on the tarmac at Blagnac airport, Toulouse (screenshot BFM TV)

But he remained guarded in an interview on national radio, stressing that, "Passengers taking over an aircraft could not be approved."

"We'll try to find out what really happened, and if the company is at fault, there will be sanctions," he told Europe 1 radio on Sunday.

"But the pilot must be the person who is in charge on a 'plane," he added.

The 137 passengers aboard the Casablanca-bound 'plane refused to buckle their seat belts after the captain informed them that the aircraft would be making unscheduled stops in the French cities of Bordeaux and Lyon to pick up other passengers; adding another six hours to what would normally have been a 90 minute journey.

They demanded that the company provide a direct flight to their destination.

What happened next was reminiscent of a similar incident just last month which saw angry Ryanair passengers refuse to leave one of its 'planes when it arrived in the Belgian city of Liège after being diverted from its original destination Beauvais in northern France - 342 kilometres away.

The pilot of the Jet4you 'plane cancelled the flight, allowed those who wanted to, to disembark, cut the lights and heating and left the remaining 85 passengers on board in the dark.

And that's where they spent the whole of Saturday night.

Interviewed by BFM television (see video) the following day some of the passengers described how difficult conditions had been on board the 'plane with children crying and everyone being cold and hungry, and they criticised the airline's lack of professionalism.

Once again it seems a low-cost airline takes the term "budget" to mean that it can do and say anything.

In Ryanair's case it was to have their passengers arrive almost 350 kilometres away from their scheduled destination.

For Jet4you, it seemed more than acceptable to triple the duration of a trip to suit its own planning.

On Sunday the company informed passengers that it would fly them directly to Casablanca in the evening.

But somehow doesn't it all seems rather a lose-lose situation, both for the passengers who spent a miserable night on the tarmac and the airline, which hardly did anything for its PR image?