A bunch of criminals try to evade the multilingual TV-licence inspector...
One of the most useless, yet mysterious Governmental charges that tends to be mostly confined to both Ireland & the UK has to be the annual TV licence. It costs €160, and for paying that whopping sum, you don’t actually necessarily get any TV. You get the privilege of being left in peace, particularly if you own anything that could be in any way capable of decoding TV signals, even if the piece of equipment in question is in multiple pieces on the floor. Even if you own a mobile home/holiday home, you still have to fork out €160, separately to the licence for your main residence, to enjoy the benefits of having a TV on holidays, when your own TV back at home isn’t being used. To my mind, it’s a complete scandal, especially when you consider that the only use to be gotten from paying the licence is the right to watch RTE, possibly one of the most inefficient, uninteresting and out-of-touch broadcasters on the face of the planet. I’ll get onto them in a second, but first, let’s consider the TV licence some more. To begin with, the nearest and most comparable licence system to us is the British version, which is similar in nearly all ways except for the fact that they’ve one serious advantage over us (aside from the fact that the BBC tends to provide more interesting programming in the first place) – they’ve no ads! RTE, by comparison, shows loads of ads – so many ads in fact, that if you didn’t know, you could easily be forgiven for thinking you were watching a proper commercial channel like TV3 or Sky…well, maybe not Sky.
Here's my favourite RTE channel...
And the other thing is, you could probably quite happily spend a whole day if needs be bouncing across the multiple BBC channels if you had to; there’s plenty to pick from. And finally, once you’ve paid your licence fee in the UK, you can then sign up to Freeview if costs are really stretched, and essentially get free digital TV just for paying the licence fee. Ireland, on the other hand, differs somewhat from that. Once you’ve paid your licence fee, you’re literally entitled to just own a TV and receive RTE and that’s about it. If you want digital TV, there’s no free options really out there so you’re stuck then paying either NTL or Sky on top of the licence fee, unless of course you buy a decoding box illegally from somewhere and use that instead. Instead of being able to pick from BBC 1, BBC 2 and so on, all ad-free of course, over here you can pick from RTE One, RTE Two, TG4 and that’s it. TV3’s a commercial enterprise anyway, so they don’t so much as get a sniff at the licence fee, even though quite arguably, they put on much better Irish programming than RTE do anyway. I suppose, in my mind at least, it’s the fact that RTE who seem to be incapable of using the money as wisely as I imagine they should be able to, get this hefty payout from the Irish government. RTE – the same people who can bring you things like The Afternoon Show, The All-Ireland Talent Show and Pat Kenny’s outrageous €600,000 annual pay, to name but a few. Although RTE make a song and dance out of denying that this is the case, any dog on the street would have the sense to figure out that with all this money, it puts any other broadcaster in Ireland, namely TV3, at gigantic competitive disadvantage. Think about it, how can they ever possibly afford to pay any of their presenters at the ridiculous levels favoured by RTE.
One of RTE's overpaid presenters discussing some exciting topics...
Quite aside from that, I don’t really believe that any of their programming at all, or anything they do really, does act in the ‘interests of the Irish people’. And if you want evidence of the type of people that present on Ireland’s state broadcaster, look no further than this statement from Gerry Ryan; ‘I have, I suppose, spent quite a long time trying to come to terms with this issue and indeed I have spent a lot of time soul searching and thinking about this in order that I would have something meaningful to say about this. I spoke at length with my family, with my children and those nearest to me. And I listened to what they had to say and I listened to the arguments they presented’. Ok, hands up, what do you think he was talking about? Anyone? When I first read this emotional statement, I actually jumped to rapid conclusions and presumed he’d been diagnosed with something pretty awful. What he was actually going on about, was the unfortunate position of having to take a pay cut from his measly €630,000. Although the man who interrupted Pat Kenny on The Frontline, Alan O’Brien, some months ago was a little bit loopy, he was absolutely spot-on in pointing out that truly, it is extremely hypocritical for people like Pat Kenny to be harping on about the economic crisis and how certain people should be taking pay cuts and got carried away in the boom, when it would at least appear, that both himself and RTE too, got carried away by senseless dreaming during the boom. Indeed, for all RTE’s assertions that their failure to pay their ‘top talent’ such extravagant salaries would inevitably lead to their stars departure from the broadcaster, there is no evidence to even suggest anyone else could afford such massive salaries to poach them away with. Even TV3’s boss pretty much spelled it out and said that he could hardly afford Pat Kenny, even at 50% of his current salary.
And here it is, the bill nobody sees the point of having to pay...
Besides that, there’s not exactly a whole wealth of other Irish TV stations that exist anyway, that could rob RTE’s presenters. Aside from that, there’s yet another reason why paying the TV licence is a complete waste of money. There was a time when I used to consider TV3 to be basically a repeat of everything on UTV; such was the frequency with which they played Coronation Street, The Bill and other UK programs. When they weren’t doing that, they were playing American drama’s that you could catch on other channels, if you even happened to like the shows, which I generally didn’t. In the last few years however, TV3 seem to have had some sort of epiphany and are now showing significantly more and significantly better Irish-focused programming than RTE does. RTE brings to the fore stuff I don’t really care too much about, like Ear to the Ground and the likes, and then the occasional Irish (disastrous) foray into modern formats like All-Ireland Talent Show and so on. On RTE Two, the younger channel I suppose, you get reruns of The Simpsons and animal documentaries and that’s about all that jumps to mind. So that leaves us with the news and Primetime as any sort of decent RTE programs. Quite frankly, the Irish things they do try tend to be an absolute unmitigated disaster; boring, laughable and cheap in the extreme. TV3 by comparison, pays people way less (would you believe, for example, that the TV3 Exposé presenters get only around €40,000 each?) and recently anyway, has been getting much better viewership figures for its programs – think The Apprentice, which was a huge success for the channel, and quite honestly something I’d much rather spend my licence fee on. Seriously, am I the only one who thinks RTE needs to really get its house in order for their €160?
Completely off-topic, but I’m away to Oslo for the weekend so I’ll catch everyone on Monday or Tuesday and in the meantime, keep a look out on Venntertainment for my first rant tomorrow…
Posted by Andy on Feb 2, 2010 in
Local,
Recession!,
Thoughts...,
Transport 
I don't believe it! They're more popular than Fine Gael in a recession...
As it stands, I’m still contemplating whether the ice has really and truly gone and as yet, haven’t gone back on the bike yet after the ‘winter spell’ in what is almost a sure sign that I’m just being lazy and putting something off that I could do anytime. And it would seem at least that while I’ve been off the bike and not keeping up to date with infrastructure and policy news on cycling, things have been coming along extremely nicely in everyone’s favour. The first thing I’m pleased to note is that the Irish Times has spoken about the huge success of the Dublin Bikes scheme. I initially criticised the scheme, not realising that you didn’t actually need to pay them €150 until you lost the bike, something which I’ve so far managed not to do. Since then however, it’s all been plain sailing – I haven’t yet had to pay for a single journey on the bikes and have undertaken quite a number of journeys on them. If I was to make any complaint about them, it might be that I’m sceptical about the maintenance of them all. One afternoon I was aspiring to get across town on a Dublin bike, crossing over onto O’Connell Street, coming from Dame St. However, as I came to a very abrupt stop just outside the Central Bank, I became acutely aware that my bum had lowered itself significantly in the direction of the ground. Ignoring this, I carried on, merged back into the traffic in front of Trinity and carried on around the corner and up to the traffic lights before the bridge, again braking quite sharply. And this time, the descent was slightly more sudden as my saddle descended further into its seat post. Indeed, as I began to progress across the bridge, my bum continued to be involuntarily lowered towards the ground until my knees were nearly hitting my chin with every turn of the pedals.
Here we have another easy-access cycle lane, once you go around the well-parked van...
As it turned out, it would appear that the seat, despite being locked firmly, was no longer willing to bear my weight at the same altitude on a constant basis, and as a result the bike got quickly deposited at a station along O’Connell Street, in favour of a new one. This was an isolated incident, not to be thought of again until two separate incidents on two separate bikes in just the last week or so prompted my concern more intensely over the maintenance of these bikes. First, I was cycling from Merrion Square up onto Leeson Street, to carry on towards college. And I was doing quite well, if I say so myself, until I pulled the brakes coming up to the lights onto Leeson Street and discovered that far from bringing my two-wheeled vehicle to the expected stop, the drop in speed was only mild and quite insufficient and I carried on holding the brakes, while slowly applying my foot to the ground in order to come to a stop before hitting something. Similarly, on another adventure, I came upon a hill, at which time the gears decided they could no longer be changed and I was left ploughing up the hill in the top gear, puffing and panting all the way. But as I say, these seem to be isolated incidents and my only major problem that anyone else seems to have noticed is the occasional distribution problems among the bikes. For example, on one side of Merrion Square (it alternates during the course of the day for some as yet unknown reason) there will always seem to be a full house as it were, a station completely full to the brim with bikes. Meanwhile, on the other side of the square, there is also always a station with not a single two-wheeler to spare. I’m not quite sure how they could remedy this problem given that they already drive bikes around the city on the back of trucks designed for just such a purpose.
Only joking! Here's the scene on the other side of Merrion Square...
The one solution that comes to mind however, and one which I take great pleasure in suggesting whenever I get the opportunity, and sometimes even when I don’t, is to take a handful of sporty people who are currently finding themselves jobless and on the dole, give them some sort of PDA device that tells them what stations have too many bikes and what have too few (Fusio’s iPhone App did pretty much just that until the media agency behind the bike scheme, JC Decaux threatened them with legal action, something which I continue to believe the city council and any politician worth their salt should have taken up) and get them to cycle bikes from the full stations to the emptier stations, in return for an amount of pay greater than what they’d get on the dole. Meanwhile, no quicker had the Irish Times announced how much of a success the Dublin Bikes scheme was, than they had to also mention through Pricewatch, that they seem to be experiencing some severe problems with theft of their bikes. On Townsend Street…and you’re expected to be surprised. I would no sooner leave a €650 bike anywhere in town without a large number of locks almost anchoring it to the ground than I would leave it down the quiet road the Irish Times building is down. I’m not exactly surprised and the notion, in the article, of paying €205 for a Kryptonite lock seems ridiculous and absolutely deplorable in a recession anyway. I think unfortunately, the Irish Times has lost the plot on this one and hasn’t got to grips with the fact that, with the exception of the Cycle to Work scheme which provides up to €1,000 for the purchase of bicycle and associated equipment, most people do not generally have €650 to spend on a commuting bike in and out of town, much less €205 for a lock, particularly one that, they note, can still be cut through with an angle grinder. If I was going to pay €205 for something to secure my bike, I’d be expecting a lock, an angry German shepherd tied to the bike and a bouncer with a VIP list of just one person, that being myself. I leave my bike outside a large majority of the college year in town, and to be fair, a bit of common sense is all it takes. If people just left their bikes in the most blatantly obvious places (I’d leave mine in the middle of Grafton Street if possible) and make it as unattractive as possible (I use cheap locks – but I use three and all three are different in style) – at the end of the day, you don’t just try to hide your jewellery in a cupboard and then leave the front door open or conversely, leave the jewellery on display and then not use an alarm, do you?
They got bailouts, bridges...and now the only useful cycle lane in Dublin! Once again, the bankers strike gold down at the IFSC...
In other good news, the proposed cycle path linking Portobello and Clontarf is set to go ahead it would seem. I still don’t think I’m really a big fan of this one – €10m seems a lot of money when it would be much better set aside for actual commuters who cycle. This scheme seems to be more about just getting people out on the bike, for a nice leisurely ride across the city, taking in the sights of all the things we’ve wasted money on like the Samuel Beckett Bridge. If the Department of Transport are trying to build up the notion that cycling is a real and serious alternative to driving, then they need to make it attractive to people where it’s needed. There’s no point in these tax relief schemes like Cycle to Work if the only half-decent cycle lane in Dublin skirts around the city on a scenic route instead. What would be a much better use of the money, to my mind at least, would be to use the €10m to ensure all the existing cycle lanes and paths were repaired and maintained to a roadworthy level, as opposed to the beaten pothole-ridden rubbish out there right now. If there’s any money left over from that exercise, and there probably wouldn’t be if they did the job properly, I’d much rather as an actual commuting cyclist, that the money be used to build these proper segregated cycle lanes and paths on the major approach routes into the city centre, on routes such as the N11, etc. As I approach from Donnybrook for example, the cycle lane basically descends in some parts into chaos, conflicting with traffic rounding corners, potholes left by the latest subcontractors good quality work and veering off across a number of lanes of traffic (as if you could actually undertake such a diversion easily in morning traffic) in order to keep on straight. And quite honestly, cycling from Portobello to Clontarf around the canals certainly wouldn’t help this.
They might as well take the €10m, and stuff it down one of the many potholes…
Moments before calling into another town with population circa, 5 people to see if they need a lift...
I have a particularly strong inclination towards Bus Eireann owing to the frequency with which I took journeys with them a couple of years ago, when I travelled from Dublin to Belfast and back quite regularly. I’m sure that like the rest of CIE, they’re probably overpaying their drivers quite significantly over the going rate and also, most of their drivers – although there is definitely a friendly minority – are anger-filled, unfriendly beings (a major exception to this being the non-Irish national who used to board around Drogheda on drives into Dublin from Belfast, who played jazz music at excessive levels and introduced himself on appearance). But, it would seem at least, that they used some of the money during the boom times to do something useful and they went and replaced loads of their fleet with newer buses, introduced increased frequencies and better services and really embraced the internet as a way to sell tickets (although their previous website to the one that’s up now was an absolute disgrace, but I like to hope that it was one of the directors’ children who was responsible for it and not an actual agency). Of course, they have their problems – for one, I’ve noticed that there’s a strong tendency for them not to clean their buses out too much and for them to leave any bits of vandalism – which shouldn’t be there anyway, to be fair – in place, making no obvious signs of removing it. Thus, on my last trip to Ballina in Mayo, I sat down into my seat only to see that Tracey, apparently, loves (loved?) Sean on the back of the chair and accompanying that was a set of curtains that were jammed half-closed. Not an overall great start to the journey and not one I can see Aircoach or Citylink putting up with for too long. My other issue with BE is their ridiculous insistence on every route, to call at every hole in the hedge along the way. The Aircoach to Belfast for example, makes it in about 2 hours flat, stopping off only at little retail centres on the outskirts of each town. BE on the other hand always, without fail, has its main bus stop on the main street (or as close to it as they can get) of each town.
Here we are not stopping, just outside Galway --- because, we're on Citylink...
Consequently, on my trips to Belfast when a sojourn on BE was unavoidable, I used to split the timetable up, depending on the severity of how likely I was to be delayed. Anything between 7am to 10am was a waste of time owing to traffic in Dublin and out at the airport; then anything between 11am to about 2pm was also a waste of time since you’d get caught up in the infamous country ‘lunchtime rush’ on all these main streets. Then, there’d be another window of opportunity until about 4pm through to 8pm, when traffic would be very heavy both in Dublin and Belfast, and also the main streets along the way. Consequently, there was about (unfortunately) 4, maybe 5 hours at a push, to make good an escape from Dublin to Belfast on any given day. And if you think just getting to Belfast was bad, you should try getting out to visit my grandparents in Belmullet, Mayo. Due to the continuing inability of CIE’s companies to integrate their timetables a little better, if you get the train to Ballina, the bus onwards would have already left, besides which, you’d also have to pay for two tickets then. This leaves you with the significantly less desirable option of taking the bus all the way to Ballina, which involves what feels like around 20 stops on the way including a 20-minute break in Longford due to their unusual policy of not sticking a toilet on any bus. Then, you get off, wait about 40 minutes and get onto another bus, which despite travelling only 60km or so onwards, actually has roughly the same amount of stops, all marked on the timetable in a way that’s helpful to locals only, such as ‘Gurteen X’.
One of the many scenic views you can expect onboard, during a lengthy drive to Ballina...
When they originally began their internet sales revolution, things were also a little underdeveloped to say the very least. BE, for example, hires in outside bus companies at times of peak demand to operate services on their behalf. They’re generous enough, it would seem, to provide these outside operators with their ticket machines for customers wishing to purchase a ticket on-board, at the nominally more expensive rate than online. What they don’t provide however, is a way for these outsiders to check the validity of BE-issued online tickets. So, one day I arrived to the bus station, sauntered up to the counter and asked if they needed to exchange the slip of paper for a real ticket before I boarded. The grumpy wagon behind the counter more or less barked a ‘NO’ at me, before quickly going onto the next lucky boy or girl. So, a bus turns up and the driver, obviously put out that he’s been commissioned to drive to Ballina on a Friday afternoon, pretty much demands that everyone get onto the bus at the greatest permissible speed. I get on, hand over my A4 sheet of paper and stand back as I witness what can only be described as a nervous breakdown – evidently, we’ve been here before. He asks if I’ve put any luggage in the store under the bus (I suspect it was in the hope that I hadn’t so that he may be able to make a speedy getaway while I went back to the ticket counter) and then sends me packing back towards the ticket office. Incidentally, I got the same grumpy trout the second time round and this time, almost as if she knew she was wrong first time, she just gave me my ticket without breathing so much as a word. Much to the driver’s dissatisfaction, not only did I get my ticket, but I managed to return to the bus a good minute before he managed to get everyone else settled on-board. Despite these issues though, I actually kind of like Bus Eireann; I think they’ve done as much good as they can and it’s true they were actually identified in a recent report as the one CIE company who couldn’t really do much more to be efficient.
One of the elders transfers in the 'beautiful' Newry bus station...
Obviously there’s always room for improvement and I think knocking a couple of those useless routes on the head that were being better served by more mainline services anyway should only be the start. Apparently, according to BE, such routes were often frequented by 5 passengers or less – come on, what kind of private transport company could afford to run a route with 5 passengers or less? It’s actually quite refreshing to see them tackling this like a normal company instead of going hunting for a bit more Government subvention. If they want to win passengers though, I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit of a clean-up on the buses that they have (which are new enough, just need to be de-vandalised and cleaned up a bit) and please, for the love and honour, lay on a few express services – would it really hurt that much? I used to take the Aircoach as a matter of priority to get to Belfast taking the BE only when I couldn’t be bothered going out to change at the airport or happened to already be in town. I can promise though that if there were express services to Belfast, Ballina, wherever I’d be far more likely to take BE; in fact, if Aircoach is anything to go by on its Belfast route, running express can actually mean beating the train’s scheduled time. The other thing is, they’re getting rapidly bypassed in terms of comfort and luxury by the others – most of the other private operators I’ve been with lately have on-board wireless internet (don’t ask how it works, it continues to puzzle me). Aside from that, let’s see if there are any more routes that could be axed and hopefully they’ve all figured out what an online ticket looks like…
That's it Three, get this in while it lasts - this'll be one of your last...
I reckon I was possibly one of Three Ireland’s first customers, having joined about 5 years ago (or so it feels like anyway) and been a pay-monthly customer ever since. In fact, when I joined first, my mobile number that they provided, before I had a chance to transfer over my own 086 number, was something like 083-3331733. No joke, I was literally two digits away from being the customer service number. And the whole point of joining in the first place from what I remember was that they were firstly, cheaper than the others or at least the same price, they provided more modern phones at better (obviously subsidised) prices and you could also get the internet on your phone. Or so I was told. In truth, the phone was cheap and modern – that much is true – but the rest of the sales pitch was mostly a load of lies. The internet for example, didn’t really exist. When you pressed the supposedly ‘magic’ button on your phone, I wasn’t greeted by an amazing and informative array of websites, ready to tantalise the senses I didn’t even know could be tantalised by mobile internet. Instead, what I always got was a boring screen broken down with ‘news’, ‘weather’, so on. Actually, even when I wanted to pay to use the proper internet, I could never find the option on their homepage site that would allow such an excursion from the boredom. Incidentally, even though I kept my phone locked, my phone was somehow able to permanently find its way onto the elusive internet whenever it was in my pocket and I’d regularly take it out only to find it had secured its way onto Motorola’s homepage, which tended to be followed up by a hefty charge for the privilege of seeing same website that I never in fact intended to visit, at the end of the month.
Here it is, the last in the line of many great mobile failures...
Aside from that, I don’t know what planet they’re all living on (Planet Three, I guess) with regard to the ‘handset’ selection, but all the phones they’ve ever sent me (usually also accompanied by a great pitch) have been rubbish with the exception of the one I least expected. The original Motorola was a block of a phone (apparently whatever inside it permitted it to access 3G networks, required that it be the size of a brick, even though this was about 2005, not 1980) and the main navigation method was by the use of a little stub of a joystick. The phone itself took days to get going from when you pressed on, which seemed to deteriorate over a period of weeks from when I got it. Aside from that, the little joystick gave up the ghost quite early on – probably, I suspect, from all that expensive surfing it was doing in my pocket. Towards the end of its tenure in fact, even though ‘messages’ was the option just one to the right on the menu screen, getting to it required a lengthy and weakening series of leftwards and upwards pushes as you struggled to navigate up and leftwards so that the selection would eventually reach bottom right of the screen again, for ‘messages’. One wrong move, and it was start all over again. I wish I could say I was saddened by the next particular loss, but I wasn’t; I lost the charger on a trip in Toronto and that meant calling Three to see if they could send another one or better still, replace my phone. They couldn’t do either it turned out but promised I was due an upgrade in the coming weeks. The next phone, as it turned out, was a Nokia slider phone that I also suspect had been rushed from concept to manufacture far too quickly. It actually became notorious on internet discussion forums for its seizing up, crashing and reluctance to work for what could sometimes be a matter of days.
Finally, in 2009 we got webtext, although it tells everyone you sent it from the web, which ruins the illusion of pretending you're elsewhere...
Once again, Three weren’t entirely interested in my story, even though plenty of other people were having the same problem judging by the various websites reporting it. It crashed, turned blue, refused point blank to send text messages and the slider very quickly jammed up as well, making ‘sliding open’ the phone to receive the call more of an arduous task than a simple movement. What a nightmare situation. This time around, I was firstly beginning to suspect that Three were no longer really very competitive on price anymore and that I was in fact being fleeced and also that every phone was reliably awful. So, despite the salesman’s best efforts on Grafton Street, I spent absolutely nothing on the next phone – which deserves special mention – an LG so reserved it doesn’t even have a model name or anything printed on it. Now, no offense to LG (who rocketed up in my estimations from this event) but I’ve never really heard anything overwhelmingly positive about them. In fact, I’ve heard nearly nothing about them – and to be fair, it was a free phone. So, I wasn’t expecting much; another year and then I’d be on my way to a new network. This LG though – I don’t know what the hell was in it, magic juice or something – just refused to give up the ghost or even wear down for what must be nearly 2 and a half years or so. It even shipped with two batteries, which is scary enough, until you consider that the one that was in it never even wore down enough for me to ever need the second one. It never crashed, never refused to send a text; actually, just never had a problem full stop. Eventually though, the charger sort of broke apart and I decided that based on the surprising brilliance of the LG, to go and ask not for an upgrade, but for a new charger. And I was told no, it’d be easier for all concerned to give me a new €200+ phone for free than to give me a €20 charger for free. So, I ended up with the phone I have, a Sony Ericsson which is ok. Although it’s only a year in and the chargers already breaking on it, as well as its occasional refusals to send Anna text messages, which is leading to some unfortunate situations.
Yeah, Deck the halls to you too son - I'm only coming for your cheap prices, certainly not your advertising...
So, in November I called Three to inform them of my imminent departure and even though it says to ‘call us any time’, the ‘team’ responsible for my request were nowhere to be found. Thankfully the next day, they had presented themselves and my call to the Three Support, which is quite evidently in a crowded call centre in Mumbai judging by the inability of either myself or the agent to hear each other over the surrounding noise, was fast-tracked it seemed, back to Dublin, where the phone was picked up by some casual-sounding individual who sounded none too concerned and basically offered me a few months free to see if I’d ‘like the new deals’ they were to be offering in January. So, although I was more than suspicious, I decided some free calls are better than free no calls, and I took him up on his generous offer. Since then, there has been no sign of any good deals and it looks increasingly like Three are one of the more expensive networks out there unless you really have to have Twitter and Facebook on your phone and you plan to use them permanently. Which I don’t, so it doesn’t offer me any sort of value. And, in one of their final acts of ‘getting every last cent’, their free call credit seems to have conveniently run dry just in time for me to call to cancel. And although they don’t know it yet, years of rubbish phones, service I can’t understand because of background noise and a refusal to just give me a charger is suddenly about to catch up on them in a way that no amount of months of supposedly free call credit could make up for. Incidentally, when you’re on hold for customer service, they play a highly irritating song that goes like ‘Takes 3 edges to make a triangle, 3 doors on a car’ and so on. I’ve a new verse for them they could add, it’s about how there’s 3 ways to lose a customer; rubbish phones, rubbish service and rubbish prices.
Looks like at Christmas next year, I’ll be getting a text from that hippy on TV inviting me to a carol-off…
Posted by Andy on Jan 28, 2010 in
Site News 
I’m pleased to announce that from next Friday the 5th of February, I’ll be writing a weekly rant over at Venntertainment (www.venntertainment), which is run by Rob Cumiskey and his team. For fans of YLT that means I’ll be able to focus more on the stuff I’ve been writing here lately and make this a full and proper home for my transport/corporate/customer service give-offs (with the occasional full-on rant), as well as writing on travel (and I’ll be heading to Norway soon so expect some travel articles to come up in the next while) and the other stuff like events and outings that I’ve been doing. For fans of Venntertainment, it basically means they’re in major trouble; there’s a weekly dose of hateful rant coming their way every Friday evening. Anyway, I hope you’ll all take the time to have a look at Venntertainment, tell me what you think and if you’ve any ideas for things I could talk about, get in touch.
Cheers!
Ps, don’t forget, you can always get even more You Love Thatsh! by following me on Twitter, or by adding me on Facebook! You can also follow Venntertainment on both Twitter and also on Facebook too, just click the links for each site!
Posted by Andy on Jan 27, 2010 in
Corporate,
Local,
Thoughts...,
Transport 
The first time I saw a seaplane make an effort to take to the air...and I do mean effort...
I’ve seen two seaplanes in my entire life – one in Vancouver, Canada and the other somewhere in Asia, can’t remember where. What was characteristic about them both was that they both made tons of noise trying to take-off, they both looked extremely unstable while trying to get off the sea and neither looked like a particularly glamorous experience. Certainly if I’d no choice though, I’d happily give it a bash – and likewise, I’d have probably loved a chance (once-off, though) to go and see the Rockies from up high. But I was pretty shocked when I read that an Irish company, Harbour Air Ireland Ltd., are looking to break into the already tough domestic market here with seaplane services right across the country. It seems they initially want to start out west by offering services to the Aran Islands from Galway, Foynes, places like that. And while, I don’t mind that so much, I would have to say that to be fair, Aer Arann have been flying from Galway to the Aran Islands for donkey’s years and I wouldn’t imagine that they plan to be blown off course by a new seaplane start-up. Then there’s also the vast array of ferry services already linking many parts of the mainland with the Aran Islands. For me, I have a sneaky suspicion that unless they can find some incredible way to add value to the whole thing, it’ll wind up being nothing more than a gimmick tourist attraction, for tourists who want the whole seaplane experience. I don’t think it’ll be a very popular transport initiative. I’ve no idea what the inside of the planes will be like either, but I highly doubt they’d rival the other major methods of transport I use from Dublin to the places they plan to serve.
If you want to fly in that, all the best...
To give them some credit, it seems like they’ve been having a tough time. To begin with, the place they planned their first base at, Mountshannon, seems to have decided they don’t actually want to have a seaplane base there, regardless of the tourists it may bring in from elsewhere. I’m not too sure why they’re complaining because in typical ignorant Dublin fashion, I actually hadn’t even heard of Mountshannon before and had to go and look it up. So, if there were flights from there to the Aran Islands, there’s a much better chance they’d be on the map than by going without. The other thing is, and I’m not entirely sure what the story is here, but it seems that for getting the show on the road, they’ve been required by some marine protection quango to conduct an environmental impact assessment. Considering how dodge shipping can be pollution-wise in the first place, I’m not too sure what this agency’s hoping to uncover, relative to all the oil and diesel that must be being spilled out by all the ferries going back and forth to the Aran Islands on a daily basis. Aside from that, there’s also another potentially calamitous problem – seaplanes sort of need calm waters for landing and take-offs. And while I’m sure that the places they’ve identified as being suitable for their operations are mostly prone to ‘calm waters’, I highly doubt that this will be an easy year-round operation, given the highly changeable nature of Irish weather.
Funny, there's another airline flying to Cork from Dublin that I wouldn't want to take on...
The big one for me though is how it could compare at all to what I already use to get to and from Belfast, Cork, etc. As I documented nearly a year ago, the train from Dublin to Cork is pretty much spot-on these days in terms of frequency, reliability and service. You can get down from Dublin to Cork in around 2 hours in comfort, and at pretty decent prices. Aside from that, both Aer Arann and Ryanair already fly that route from airport to airport, so there’s not really much need for an additional service. I have a sneaking suspicion that the passengers who would tend to travel between Dublin and Cork probably value speed and money the most, so the only major thing I can see them going for is if they landed somewhere near Dublin Port so you could maybe get the Luas straight up into town from there? And even at that, I can’t see too many people paying more than about €50 for the privilege either; I know I wouldn’t. Likewise, they’d want to land somewhere near Cork city centre itself – after all, the train does exactly that. And if it only lands on the outskirts of both cities, then you could probably save yourself some time and money by flying between the two airports instead on much larger and faster aircraft. Belfast also, is a bit of an issue, I should think. I have no idea how long it takes to fly a seaplane up to the North from here, but I suspect it would be somewhere in the region of 40/50 minutes. Presuming you’d need to be there around 30 minutes in advance of departure and it would take anything up to 20 minutes for getting off and finding your way either to a bus or whatever to take you into the proper city centre from there, you’re looking at just over 1 and a half hours. If you drive fast enough (not that I’m encouraging speeding, but you get the idea), you’d manage it in the same time roughly. The train takes about another hour but takes from you downtown to downtown, and the Aircoach from Dublin Airport also states 2.5 hours but in truth, usually only takes around 2 hours since it tears all the way up North at a rate of knots. Now, consider that the train is roughly only around €20 each way and that the bus tends to be about €20 return, you see the problem. Unless they can somehow deliver amazing prices, the service ends up not being that attractive at all.
Tourist gimmick or modern intercity transport visionaries? Any thoughts?
There’s two ways I can see this going. Firstly and most likely, it may well end up (if it, and I hope it does, gets going) as nothing more than a bit of a gimmick – a tourist attraction of sorts. In which case the only hope for expansion would be to develop and set up separate bases around scenic parts of the country and fly around neighbouring coastline and points of interest. Maybe also develop services between the bases so that said tourists could commute across Ireland and the company could deliver/feed them into other services and continue the money-making. This seems a good option because they could also charge ‘proper’ prices to tourists for the services. On the other hand, if they’re going for the intercity transport, they may have some very big problems. The routes they’ve so far identified are already nearly clogged right up with buses, trains and planes flying the exact same route. It’s so bad in fact that Ryanair regularly flies passengers to and from Cork either for free or for €5, and it’s generally the first route available at low fares during a seat sale. Similarly, Aircoach deliver a luxury coach service at relatively little cost and generally at much greater speed compared to Bus Eireann. Then, as I said, Irish Rail are really cleaning up their act these last few years and their services between Belfast and Cork are actually quite respectable. So, if they’re looking to get Irish folks to fly with them from city to city, they’re going to need to match the others who are all offering great prices, great comfort, great reliability and great service.
Either way, I can’t wait to see how this goes, all the very best to them…
Posted by Andy on Jan 25, 2010 in
Fun!,
International,
Thoughts...,
Travels *Before I begin, a few housekeeping issues – the latest version of Wordpress has made a number of changes that are screwing things up a little for me, so bear that in mind if posts seem far apart or don’t look quite right. Also, in case that wasn’t enough, Eircom seems to have made some fantastic ‘upgrade’ to the internet service lately, that’s resulted in me being offline more than on, so that should also explain the sudden drop-off in post regularity. Again, sorry about that, although it’s really more to do with Eircom than me…*
Welcome to Belize! Gangsters Paradise...
I could probably count on one hand in the time since I was there, the amount of people who even know where Belize is, let alone what it is. A British colony for many years, this tiny country that lies just south of Mexico and North of Guatemala finally gained independence in 1981, not that you’d really know it judging by the place. It was the starring country in one of Ross Kemp’s gangland investigation shows lately, in which he found out about the ‘hard crime’ and ‘gangs’ of Belize, which I found to be pretty humorous, having actually been there. It’s amazing how when you’ve actually never been to a place, you can quite quickly jump to the conclusion of a place being a dump, or a kip, even though you’re going solely by the (biased) program or show you’re seeing. For me, Ross Kemp and his ‘investigation’ was interesting, but no more than a very biased look at Belize’s crime problems – and don’t get me wrong, it has major crime problems – that failed to take any note of why these things happen. To begin with, Britain pulled out in 1981 and has failed to make any sort of meaningful investment into the country, that might encourage it to be able to stand up properly on its own two feet. The result, as if often the case, has been that crime has taken off at an alarming rate and as Ross quite correctly identified, gangland killings, drugs, hijackings and shootings are rife. I’d imagine however that this has quite a lot less to do with them wanting to go out and commit crime and more to do with the lack of development, jobs and money, after being left broke and with nothing to do by the sudden departure of the British.
I wish I could say we were fleeing a shootout, but eh..we were actually coming back from a bar...
While I was there, the advice was simple. The previous week, a major airlines offices’ had been raided at gunpoint, a seemingly regular occurrence, for money. I visited a hotel while there (Radisson, possibly?) and just getting into the hotel was akin to trying to board a flight from the US, such was the level of security. If you get a puncture, the best advice regardless of cost or vehicle destruction, is to carry on driving if at all possible for as long as you can as highway robberies are still frequent, and violent. So, you can imagine what I felt at the time about visiting the place. And for anyone unaware of what it’s like to land in such a place (and I’ve landed in a few similar places in terms of violence and general lack of development), here’s a quick rundown. Following the bumpy 2.5 hour flight that took us from the relative safety of Dallas-Fort Worth to Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport, Belize right across the Gulf of Mexico, we circled and descended over grasslands, makeshift roads, turning out over the sea once and back across the grasslands, with the little huts becoming more visible and identifiable as we descended further and further. Although I’m told there’s now an expansion program underway at the airport, at the time of visiting we landed and immediately set about coming to an abrupt halt – seemingly, overshoots even at this main airport are common. Before you even get to the door, the searing wet heat reaches your seat and has you drenched and sweating long before you’ve even gotten off the plane. There’s no bridges straight into the terminal here.
The Mayan ruins at Altun-Ha - also, home to the crocodile sellers...
The baggage claim is more like a small room about the size of two Irish classrooms, in which there are two baggage belts, which may or may not work; not, on the day of my visit. From here you walk up to what can best be described as a normal school desk, behind which sat the local immigration official. Getting into Belize is trivial at best I imagine – every tourist counts, when it comes to bringing money into the country. And while most head down further South to somewhere like Placencia, my home for the next week was to be the ex-capital of Belize, Belize City itself. Originally the capital, Belize City was overtaken by the city of Belmopan because of Belize City’s close proximity and low altitude relative to the sea, which makes it a prime target for flooding and widespread exposure to the occasional hurricanes that pass through. For tourists though, there’s plenty to do if you want – there’s Mayan ruins just further up the road from the airport at Altun-Ha. We drove up there on the last day before I was due to fly home; while we were taking in the scenery and the sights, two young boys came right over to us, and attempted to sell us a baby crocodile. While I reckoned it’d be the best thing ever for scaring off door-to-door salesman, I had to decline the offer on account of the potential problems at American immigration on my re-entry to normality. It’s a spectacular sight though, and the fact that there’s no barriers and you can just climb up on top of them if you want, makes the entry fee all the more worthwhile, even if tourists do seem to pay a ‘special price’.
And here we have it, the Champs-Elysees of Belize City...
The real beauty for me at least though, lay in its normality. Because they’ve only been able to afford to build when there’s money, and that’s not all too frequent, things have grown up a little piecemeal all over the place. In short, to anyone else, it looks like a complete dump – buildings just turn up anywhere and everywhere; you might have a concrete hut that’s acting as a bar here, and then a wooden shack restaurant over there, and so on. One afternoon, we spent the midday drinking fresh ‘Belikin’ beer from what can best be described as a concrete shack, that seemed to have just sprouted out of the side of the road, sort of out of line with the other surrounding buildings. When I asked to go to the toilet, after a few too many Belikins, I was directed to an area basically still inside the bar but with a concrete dividing wall separating the bar area from this little room if you like. To gain privacy for your call of nature, there was a shower curtain you could pull across if you so wished. I quickly learned that that wasn’t just a dodgy bar (although there’s plenty if you’re looking for them), that was what they were all like. Another night, I returned home to bed after a particularly drunken evening at the local tavern. I sent an e-mail or two back home to assure everybody of my well-being (even though I wasn’t entirely convinced myself), and turned off the light, making sure my window blinds were across in order to try and stop any local crocodiles or snakes, or whatever else from coming in. Something much more bizarre happened however. I woke up the next morning, with a beating head that reminded me all too well of the night before. And when I looked up, there it was. In clear, black marker, as if someone had somehow managed to levitate over my bed to do this bit of artwork, was a bit of writing, as clear as day that said something to the effect of ‘Israel’. At first, I couldn’t believe it, checked my bags and everything was still there, so just let it drop. Sometimes it’s best not to ask questions.
The 'authentic' Belize eatery - now serving hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, pizza and accepting US $...
One afternoon I went out snorkelling and scuba diving around the outlying islands, which was one of the best days of the trip, but also one of the most eye-opening. As we set out, music blaring from what was essentially a party-ship, we stopped, one-by-one, at these huge cruise ships off the coast. One by one, American tourists joined the party. Later on, on the way back, I asked the crew what the story with that was. As it turns out, the large American cruise ships, despite boasting of stop-offs in Belize, dock miles out at sea for the duration of the layover, organising excursions only with tour operators with whom they have a deal. When they do bring their passengers onshore for a look around, it’s always with reps who make sure they stay in the areas they want them to stay. It struck me that in spite of paying all that money to get a stopover in Belize, the only Belize any of them get to see is the manufactured version that seems nice, is perfectly safe and isn’t much cheaper than home. During the cruise, we ended up stopping off at a ‘tropical island’, which I was warned, was more or less set up for the benefit of cruise passengers. Although I’m including the picture here to show you what it’s like, even that can’t possibly do it justice – essentially, the whole island was like a big tropical island-themed version of something from Disneyland. Faux bamboo huts and shacks were set up, with full bars, global TV coverage and restaurants unlike anything you’d see back on the mainland were open, serving up ‘burgers, hot dogs, chips’ and the usual US fare. I couldn’t believe it. While the snorkelling and scuba diving were incredible, I had no doubt that the Americans would have a far different opinion of Belize in their cabins overlooking the ocean outside, than I would staring straight up at the fresh writing above my head that I was still wondering the origins of; all the while contemplating the purchase of that crocodile.
Posted by Andy on Jan 22, 2010 in
Corporate,
Local,
Recession!,
Thoughts... 
This way please, hope you've paid your increases...
It came as no shock to anybody that the VHI (and other health insurance companies) announced in recent weeks that they plan to jack up the cost of health insurance in Ireland by around 8%. In fact, from what I can recall, the VHI were at the forefront of the recent announcements, by trotting out their usual line that they need more money to pay for the older clientele on their books. They did however stress that they’re trying to attract younger customers back onto the client list, who may have left in recent years to go and join health insurers who offer proper value for money, like Aviva and Quinn. Actually, that was the part of the announcement that stunned me the most – how could they possibly claim to be attracting anyone, especially young people back onto their books given the absolutely laughable advertising campaign that they’re running at the moment, which has been the focus of a number of internet parodies; I refer of course, to the tale of Margaret and her trip to Kenya and the subsequent dose of the runs she suffered. Thankfully, ‘they’ knew of VHI straight away and there was no paperwork to be filled out. If young people are so cost-focused as we’re told they are, then how are young people going to be attracted by the shaky (and slightly unbelievable) promise of ‘no paperwork’ on our trips to Kenya? I’ll fill out as many pieces of paper as the Kenyans like if it means I get cheaper health insurance at the end of the day. One of the most interesting figures around, and one which I noticed that they must have accidentally forgotten to reveal, is that far from the meagre 8% price increase they’re planning to lob onto our policies this year, health insurance in general has actually rocketed by an average of 147% since 2000 (to 2009, according to the Consumer Price Index, CSO). So, in actual fact, the price of health insurance since 2000 to the introduction of this latest round of price increases is not 8%, it’s 155%.
With more people being forced to leave VHI, it's time to do some construction to cater for the increased demand (eh?!)...
I have no doubt that these price increases are completely unavoidable, for a number of reasons. Right now, under some pathetic regulation, other health insurers are forced to pay up their portion of the ‘health insurance levy’, to effectively subsidise the VHI and their ‘older members’. Seemingly, because so many of the VHI’s customers have been with them for years, they’re now staring old age in the face and that means they’re proving to be more costly than the VHI would like, especially given how they’re missing out on the premiums of young customers, who are voting with their feet and heading for the other less-expensive insurance companies. This health insurance levy thing to my mind at least, is a scandal. The VHI’s been around since the late 50’s and has been collecting premiums on many of these ‘older’ members for donkey’s years. These are members who’ve not been requiring many health services as they progressed through their life stages. And if they haven’t been requiring a whole lot of their health insurance money back, then the VHI’s had years – decades, in fact – to retain this money and save it up for just such an eventuality. Surely good sense would’ve told them decades ago that they’d need to hold onto a large portion of this money/invest it/stick it in a bank account for the day when all their young members would become old. It’s just nature that as people get older, they need more health treatments – how could they possibly not have seen this one coming?
One of the VHI's favourite places, even though this is BUPA's baby...
It seems that all they’ve been doing for years is taking everyone’s premiums – thanks very much – and then doling them out to each other as bonuses and massive salaries and profits, along with collective pats on the back. Increasingly, since 1957, it’s not like health insurance has exactly been entirely ‘voluntary’ either if you wanted to actually be treated at all during your lifetime, as the public service has quite evidently collapsed into the sea, more or less. So it’s not like they can say they’ve been stuck for members, eager to dodge the public service. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not even going to try to right the wrongs of the health system – most of my family are involved in it in one way or the other and they’d have much more in-depth thoughts about it than I could ever hope to. But, even they’d gladly admit, if you live in Ireland, then being on a health insurance scheme is borderline compulsory if you value your health. It feels though, that after the VHI had managed to squander most of the money they should really have kept, they then realised that there was an almighty problem coming up on the horizon – their members were all turning into, at an alarming rate, the grey brigade and they were almost all going to need health treatments in the upcoming years. So what do the VHI do? Cunning as foxes, they turned to the other health insurers and asked them to basically subsidise their costs. It puts me nearly over the edge of anger that they even had the cheek to try this one after all the years they’ve had collecting money off Irish citizens, with Ireland having no other choice for health insurance other than the VHI. It’s not like they did anything even remotely useful with their money – if you’re in health insurance, it might make sense, you’d imagine, to maybe build your own private hospitals and in that way, be able to better control costs. Wouldn’t you think so? But not the old VHI, building hospitals was far beyond them – instead, it was actually their rivals, BUPA, who they drove out, who shelled out for much of the construction of Blackrock Clinic, of which VHI sends many members to, for treatment.
And the winner of most expensive card in my wallet this year goes to...The VHI of course...
I’ll give them some credit. Actually no, I won’t really. In the past few years, they’ve tried to be ‘innovative’ by introducing new products to the market. I can see the point, but it sort of feels like even when they decided to get off their bums and react in some sort of positive fashion, they still made a mess of it. They opened up a range of Swiftcare clinics throughout Ireland; in my mind these would have been an absolutely incredible dealmaker for their health insurance market – it’s quite simple, give VHI members free and priority access to Swiftcare and charge everyone else the absolutely scandalous rates that they’re currently charging for access to the clinics. Quite simply, it would actually have given me a real, proper reason to stay with VHI. Instead though, VHI members have to pay through the nose to use the clinics the same as anyone else does. It’s a disaster – I don’t know what boom-time they’re living in, but I couldn’t possibly afford the €80+ to go visit one of the clinics, when I’m supposed to already be covered by health insurance, that’s quite ironically the same brand as the clinic I’d like to visit. They did however toss out annual multi-trip insurance – and it’s actually quite good. The problem is, as I say, it kind of feels like they just come up with these random ideas, put no major thought into how they could possibly tie them in together and add value to their core insurance market. And even though I’ll have to pay an increase no matter what insurer I should decide to go with, I think the VHI are seriously being ridiculous.
Off to Aviva I go, before my next trip to Kenya…
You won't be seeing this in Dublin too much anymore...
From anywhere between 2005 and about 2007, I used to fly with BMI whenever I could afford to do so going back and forth across the Irish Sea. It was the only airline at that stage that still handed out some complimentary shortbread, a drink and still didn’t seem to have cottoned on to the concept of leaving seats only as far apart as the average persons leg size throughout the cabin. In short, it was surprisingly comfortable, considering the low fares they offered. Somehow, every time I needed to transit through Heathrow to carry on elsewhere, bmi always seemed to come up as the cheapest; incidentally, the one time I did take Aer Lingus to make a connection in Heathrow, I nearly missed the connection because the little tug at the front of the plane in Dublin apparently ‘got stuck’ and took some time to be unattached from the plane. Even when the boys and I went on our Euro-trip in 2005 after the leaving cert, we all departed in style, flying out on bmi. Then, sometime around 2007, or so it seems, bmi obviously decided enough was enough and they couldn’t possibly be seen not following everyone else anymore and they embarked on what can best be described as a low-cost mission. The only thing they seemed to have forgotten was that for all this declining service, the fares are also supposed to come down but in fact they didn’t – I suspect they did the opposite – and instead, seem to have risen constantly year on year to the point where the lowest fare I can ever seem to get with them is around €38 one-way. And even though they don’t charge for luggage still, they do add on those nonsensical credit card charges, which means I always imagine that the fare isn’t actually anywhere near €38 at the end of it.
Comfy seats for the early morning flights give ample opportunity for sleep...
Which is absolute rubbish considering that at the end of this exercise, they were no longer serving the free shortbread, they were forcing people to use impersonal self-service kiosks wherever they could and still funnelling people through the cow-shed that constitutes the Irish departure-end of Heathrow. It’s no surprise then that the last few times I’ve had to pass through Heathrow (generally, as quickly as I can possibly time the flights together), the winner has never been bmi to take me either from or to Dublin; it’s always been Aer Lingus. And you know what? The difference in service at this stage is completely unrecognisable anyway. There was a point when Aer Lingus looked like the hardworking, but still poor distant relation of bmi, and bmi looked like the older brother, having worked hard for years and done very well (and I suppose that makes Ryanair the bratty youngest kid). Now however, they’re both the same planes, you have to pay for everything on both, they both fly from the same dump of a terminal and they both stop wherever they can get space in Dublin. No difference. By contrast, the old bmi was a different thing altogether; as it happens, I’ve a receipt from them from 2005 and the total fare was only €23, of which only €9 was the fare, the rest being taxes (which also goes to show you how little you really should be paying for ‘taxes and charges’). Bmi seemed to get the good gates at Dublin Airport, ran a timely ship as it were, put up a good service and in that way, sort of ran Aer Lingus into the ground on any comparison over the two airlines flying between Dublin and Heathrow.
Quick! Hurry to pick a bmi sale fare...that'll still be much more expensive than their low-cost competitors...
A couple of days ago I saw an article in the papers saying that bmi are now looking to eliminate their one based aircraft out of Dublin, with the potential loss of 33 staff, and before I even had time to properly contemplate that, I received an e-mail from bmi yesterday telling me that from the end of January, they’re planning to eliminate the business cabin from all bmi short-haul aircraft, including Dublin and Heathrow. The reason seems to be that business travellers can no longer afford the luxury of travelling in business-class and so instead, they’re introducing a ‘flexible economy’, in a move that almost looks to be copying Aer Lingus’ similar fare. The question is, what are they doing? They seem to have gone from being an airline who were providing all the service at low fares (that’s a good thing, guys) to being an airline who are providing the exact same shoddy service as all the other airlines at a higher cost. At least when they were providing the higher levels of service, I would’ve been (and I was an unpaid student) more than willing to pay a bit more in recognition of the better service I was receiving over Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus generally charge around €70 to get to and from Heathrow, I would’ve happily paid around €100 then for bmi. Instead, they went out and carbon copied Aer Lingus’ model of being a complete failure and then tried to adhere to it as much as possible. The only thing they still had going for them was the business-class cabin, the only airline to do so from Dublin to Heathrow. Indeed, I was actually saving up all my bmi miles for just such an excursion. Now that’s gone, they’re just another supposed restructured low-cost airline, who aren’t more than likely going to be going anywhere too far too fast. If it’s low fares I’m after, then I’d take Ryanair. If it’s proper travel I want, it would have been bmi. And I know that the argument is the changing needs of travellers, but there’s a problem there.
And after all that mile-saving, there'll be no business class for Andy Mac...
If business travellers can no longer afford to fly in business class, then what are Cityjet doing, who’ve just upped the number of flights they’re going to be running between Dublin and London City? Someone mustn’t have told them that business travel’s dead, at least if bmi’s to be believed. I suspect this is less to do with business travel being dead and more to do with bmi losing the way. I have a sneaky suspicion that, seeing the other airlines cramming passengers in and making a fortune, they thought that would be a good idea for them too and in doing so, began to make their business cabins less luxurious. The result has been pretty obvious – the elusive business travellers haven’t died a death, they’re in less numbers and they’re even more discerning now, so they’re voting with their feet and switching to an airline who still looks after them, in this case Cityjet. Bmi meanwhile have now ended up in a situation where their business travellers have abandoned ship for greener pastures and that leaves the troubled airline with just economy passengers, who just want the cheapest bargain. In essence, they’ve unwittingly entered a market I don’t think they really meant to – because, let’s face it, the low-cost carrier arena is one that bmi simply can’t win at. And the result is that they’re now having to cut down flights, pare back service even more and try and wrestle with the low-cost giants – but on what competitive basis? Their fares can’t be lower, they won’t ever manage the same punctuality and they’ll have the same rubbish service – so why choose bmi? They’re saying still that they’re ‘Better for Business’ but I suspect that it’s a last-ditch effort at attracting the elusive business passenger back on-board.
An aircraft in my sights for the business-class '60 Day Makeover' treatment...
Personally, what I would have welcomed in my e-mail much more, and I suspect would have made much better business sense for them wouldn’t be a removal of their business-class cabins – quite the opposite. I’d have prescribed the same medicine for bmi as I prescribed for Aer Lingus sometime ago; they can’t possibly get away with this low-cost thing they’re going after. At best, they can only hope to sustain themselves as a shuttle into Frankfurt for their parent company, Lufthansa, at the rate they’re going. If they’re really serious about staying in the game then it’s time for an instant revival – one of Andy Mac’s ’60 Day Airline Makeover’s’! You can’t go around saying you’re better for business when you’re not; businessmen and companies aren’t thick, they know what they like and they know what they don’t. Businessmen aren’t possibly ever going to buy into a ‘flexible economy’ fare, that’s basically normal economy with food – when they pay big bucks, they’re going to want the service to back it up. So, far from removing business class seats, I reckon bmi need to haul them straight back out of the warehouse and get some plush new business seats back into their aircraft, without delay. Cityjet are evidently doing something right and I can promise you that they’re still providing full service and business-class segregation. So bmi need to get ahead of the game – more special services for business travellers, more attention, more ‘with our compliments’, more flexibility and more ‘personal’ touches.
Because, quite honestly, if they thought the business travellers weren’t loyal to them just wait until their economy passengers see a Ryanair seat sale…
Guess which health club I'm talking about...
There was a time when there was fish in the tank and the candles were lit. The huge screen showed some sort of film or programme and texts were sent anytime I visited, like a friend so delighted by my recent visit to their opulent palace that they couldn’t wait to have me back. Surprisingly, I’m not talking about a visit to Buckingham Palace, but about the gym in Dun Laoghaire. Crunch Fitness, the gym that’s hidden in the basement of the Pavilion, has been open for a number of years, seemingly catering to the great and the good of the local area – anyone with over at least €400 to shell out on gym membership a year – and in the process, doing its best to convince people that what is really needed for any self-respecting health centre isn’t just a pool, weights and machinery. It’s also all about the gold-plated chandeliers swinging from the ceiling, the leather seats in the changing rooms, the fish tank/reception desk and of course, the use of as many flat screen TV’s as can be squashed into the one building. I went on a tour of the premises when it opened a few years back and what I remember best was not in fact the swimming pool, or much of the equipment or anything at all fitness-related for that matter. What I remember was the plush red carpeting, the booming dance music and the darkness inside. The whole thing, for me at least, resembled the 21 Club in Dublin city. So when I read an article recently in Pricewatch in the Irish Times regarding health centres and their dwindling memberships, I wasn’t really at all surprised. For me, Crunch Fitness was all about one thing and it wasn’t especially fitness.
Every health club's worst nightmare - someone discovering they can exercise for free...
For a lot of people, just being seen there. Crunch Fitness seemed to be pretty much the coolest club close to me that you could possibly be in. I was a member at the Royal Hotel in Bray and I sense that by comparison, mine wasn’t half as exclusive by any stretch by certain people’s assertions, not that I cared. The gym was; well, to put it bluntly, like an actual gym and the pool wasn’t ever shrouded in darkness, even at night time. I read lately that 60% of gym members are not by any stretch of the imagination, regular users. In fact, from what I’ve read in the past, it’s this factor of providing an air of exclusivity which many gyms, like the Crunch Fitness chain I’ll be bound, are relying on for pulling in hundreds of members, knowing fine well that pulling them in is just a matter of making the place look exclusive and luxurious. Which we all know deep down, exercise is generally not – who do you know looks exceptionally good and full of the airs and graces when they’re puffed out from a good dose of exercise? Nobody. As a result, places like Crunch did an immaculate job of putting a ‘theme’ almost on their premises, by making them look like miniature palaces. All the while, they knew fine well they wouldn’t have to put quite so much effort into the actual equipment, because the type of clientele they were trying to attract probably wouldn’t ever attend anyway.
Yeah, save €250, I got it - but €250 subtracted from what exactly?
Now however, there’s a problem. The recession has come down on top of us and instead of looking for the most expensive or the most exclusive, most people are having to go instead for the cheapest option, or in many cases, abandon the whole health thing altogether. It’s all very unfortunate for a brand that was built on the premise of separating yourself from the riff-raff of other fitness clubs. And, in Crunch’s case at least, the job they’re doing of it is pathetic. The last couple of times I went down there as a guest, I was made fill out a customer information card with details that they didn’t really need to know, like my e-mail address and mobile phone number. I made a critical mistake by competing them – my friend, Barry, on the other hand dispensed with filling these sections out – and as a result, was deluged with text messages ever since with varying offers and special prices, none of which I believe to be that special, because they generally don’t compare as favourably to the multitude of leaflets I tend to receive from the same people. And in all cases, they refuse anywhere to publish a price for joining – even still, when people are primarily cost-conscious. Other gyms meanwhile have embraced this new price-is-right game wholeheartedly and are splashing the offers right up on their homepages and making big news of it. Crunch meanwhile, seems to still be caught in the trap and haven’t yet been made aware that the days of customers not caring too much about the price are well and truly over. The only way I can see for gyms to carry on in the face of dwindling memberships and less new subscriptions is to do one of two very basic things; either cut the costs somehow or else increase the income somehow, and there’s only a few ways to do either.
No Fianna Fáil tent means there's definitely no money in the country anymore...
The major problem for all the gyms seemingly is that they are, unlike Ryanair’s many surcharges, genuinely discretionary. Furthermore, they have a declining membership from people who can no longer afford or have realised that they do not sufficiently use the gym enough. That’s also coupled with a total halt on anyone subscribing, due to the same problems. The problem then really is getting people through the doors – or better still, sticking with the same philosophy, not getting them through the doors but having their money anyway. Many newspapers are, quite troublesomely, reminding readers that exercise can be gotten for free by taking a run in the local park or buying a bike, or funnier still, swimming in the Irish Sea. The gyms are up against something that can be seemingly done for free outdoors and are up against the credit crunch that seems to be pillaging from everyone’s pockets. So what to do? Fight back! While I was waiting in the reception area of Crunch, a lady came along on behalf of her son, who has just been promoted to the ‘A’ squad of Ireland’s male hockey team. She was there wondering that, based on his requirement and desire to train and his relatively-professional ascension, would the club be able to do her any sort of special deal, since he was looking for somewhere to train but not necessarily somewhere expensive. My response would’ve been to get her straight into an office immediately, see what the other places had offered her in terms of pricing and facilities, and try and beat it. Not because she was a nice woman, but the potential for Crunch was pretty immense – think about it. Here’s a guy who’s just joined a professional hockey team looking to join a health centre; throw him a substantial discount on the basis that you can say that he’s the kind of person who trains there – a discerning athlete.
You won't find any chandeliers, projection screens of darkness out here...
What actually happened however was the much more predictable ‘oh right, well here’s our current prices, is he a student?’ comment. It feels like health centres, especially Crunch, have been so caught up in this ‘luxury’ bubble that they haven’t a clue how to possibly get out of it when they need to. The recession has hit us all hard and we need to watch the coins on a pretty much permanent basis – so they’ve responded by continuing to highlight their luxury clubs and not tell us how much they cost. What seems like it would be much more effective would be if they came out with their prices, as low as they can (more than other gyms is still fine), declare them open to some negotiation, all the while highlighting the benefits of training and joining that particular brand, the luxury, but most importantly, the company’s serious dedication to fitness, something which seems to be a bit lacking right now. Remind customers that you have the facilities they need all in the one place, a heated pool (come on, there’s no competition between that and the Irish Sea, is there?) and the knowledge to get a full body workout. For me, the possibility of getting people serious into their sports into the club would be more of a priority – right now, the clubs are a lot of fancywork and very little substance. If they’re going to make out, especially at a time of year when people want to get thin and lose the Christmas excesses, that they’re serious about losing weight and building muscle, then what better way than to show that serious sports people train there. Because, for me at least, all that golden tiling in the showers just makes me feel a bit dizzy more than anything, and I don’t care much for lilac candles on the fish tank reception desk.
They can take a run…
