Ryanair

The first direct Ryanair winter flight from the UK to Ibiza - 28th October 2008

Flight FR 9251 was slightly late leaving London Stansted on a beautiful if cold Tuesday morning the 28th October 2008. After an uneventful flight down from the UK at some 32,000 feet, we left the Spanish mainland and flew down to the island through rain cloud, which made it a bit “choppy” but we made a perfect landing in rainy Ibiza spot on time. On Ryanair you know that the plane is on time landing because they play a recorded bugle call to announce it! Not everybody’s cup of tea, but if that’s their way it’s a small price to pay for a direct scheduled air service to the UK in winter.

There were one hundred and forty seven of us on this, the first flight; not a bad number all other things being equal. EasyJet still haven’t finally stopped their schedule and Ryanair themselves had put out hardly any publicity! The Boeing 737-800 had seats for 189, meaning that the plane was 77.8% loaded.

I was interested to see who the passengers were. Some were clearly “locals”, others looked as if they were making a last minute holiday dash over (poor things in view of the weather) and yet others were business people, call them commuters if you like. My immediate neighbours on the plane were marketing types - preparing already for the 2009 season; in fact there was a jolly good cross section of the target market that I imagine the airline will try to attract and retain.
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A lot of lip service has been paid to “extending the season” - and many empty promises have been made! Earlier this year there were rumours that Space had agreed to delay their Closing Party for a week to this end which, theoretically, would have obliged the other clubs to follow suit. It didn”t happen, but maybe next year?

Similarly Winter tourism has been on the agenda for some time, but nothing seems to be being done at this end to cater for this imminent influx of happy, expectant winter visitors. Traditionally, the obstacles to progress have been: 1) No direct flights, 2) as a result, no hotels open, 3) nothing for people to do when they get here, 4) Business owners don”t really care anyway, because they all earn so much during the summer that they can afford a six month holiday…

This summer’s emphatically bad season appears to have put the final nail into this complacency. Ibiza is now widely recognized as overpriced and poor value for money in terms of service. This has been compounded by a general belief earlier in the season that the night clubs had all been shut down, if not the bars as well, according to the internet banter, which put many of our younger visitors off “in case it turned out to be true”.

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