(Source: Wired & TimesOnline, UK)

The tightwads at Ryanair have found yet another fee to foist upon customers already nickeled and dimed to death.

The airline widely renowned for being the cheapest thing going says it will start charging passengers £5 ($7.50) for the privilege of printing their boarding passes at home. It’s the latest brilliant idea from the folks who earlier this year suggested charging passengers to use lavatories. What makes this idea so absurd is it replaces Ryanair’s previous practice of offering free online ticketing as an alternative to checking in at the ticket counter – which costs you £10. Leave it to Ryanair to sell the new fee as a way to save money.

Image: Gizmodo

“For some passengers, yes, the price has gone up,” spokesman Stephen McNamara told the Times of London. said. “But for those used to paying the £10 airport check-in fee, the price has actually gone down.”

Unless you can’t print out your boarding card. Or you lose it. Then you’re looking at a £40 fee.

The airline says anyone who doesn’t have a printer should get a friend to print the pass for them or go to an Internet cafe in order to avoid a £40 fee.

“Online check-in is the future,” McNamara said, according to the Times. “My mother doesn’t have a computer, but would a person without an ATM card have been allowed to hold up the automation of the banking system?”

Ryanair’s move comes as the European Union forces the airline to be more honest in disclosing some of the fees and taxes it slaps on every ticket. Many of them are impossible to avoid, but Ryanair doesn’t make that clear when advertising its super-cheap fares. The Independent notes Ryanair will tack a £10 fee onto its “free” tickets if they’re purchased with normal credit or debit cards, but it doesn’t disclose that charge in the initial price. Combine that with other stealth fees and your free Ryanair flight can end up costing as much as £80 ($120).

According to the EU, the days of the £1 flight that ends up costing £59.99 after the taxes, fees, check-in and baggage charges are over — for half the airlines identified, anyway — and the opt-in boxes for extras such as insurance and priority boarding are no longer ready-ticked. In theory, consumers should see all taxes, fees and other compulsory charges at the beginning of the booking process and not on the bottom line.

“It is unacceptable that one in three consumers going to book a plane ticket online is being ripped off, misled or confused,” said the EU’s commissioner, for consumer protection, Meglena Kuneva. “There are serious and persistent problems with ticket sales throughout the airline industry as a whole. My message to industry is clear: act now or we will act.”

(Source: Wired & The New Zealand Herald)

Love is in the air — Air New Zealand, that is. The Kiwi carrier has launched Matchmaking Flight to bring lonely travelers together. After all, what better way to get to know The One than sharing a 13-hour flight on your first date?

If you aren’t up for a blind date, you can try meeting that special someone on the airline’s Matchmaking Flight website, a social networking where passenger can meet and interact in the safety of cyberspace before meeting at the terminal. That could keep you from getting matched with that sketchy guy in Seat 35B who keeps mentioning the mile-high club.

In a new venture, coined “love at first flight”, the airline says it is aiming to help single Americans find New Zealand dates with a themed flight headed for a dual hemisphere singles party.

It’s almost a given that the first flight will depart from Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 13. The journey of love, which is an enticing overnight flight, begins with a pre-flight party at the Air New Zealand Lounge. What happens next is up to you. Upon landing, passengers will dance away their jet lag at the Grand Matchmaking Ball at Auckland’s SkyCity Grand hotel. The whole package starts at $780 per person.

Register on the website and you can look for love in categories that include American boyfriend, Canadian girlfriend, Kiwi friend, and, our favorite, “business contact. The airline says 75 people have signed up. They’re about evenly split between North Americans and Kiwis. Men and women are also equally represented. Air New Zealand hopes passengers will be in a romantic mood just thinking about their destination.