Capot Nice summary
- "... change the way people buy tickets forever." is the kind of hyperbole that MoL cannot avoid using. The rest of the regurgitated PR notes repeat similar things.
- MoL is trying to change things to keep up the percentage rises in the profit. This is a perfectly reasonable one to try. Particularly as it costs him nothing. "The famously frugal Ryanair is not putting any of its €3bn cash pile into the new scheme, with Google only seeking valuable data from the airline."
- Do not imagine that MoL is a busted flush. He invented a whole range of new business tricks that are now a received way of doing things.
- It is true that he has used up many of those wheezes - like the regional airport subsidies - but there is life in the old dog yet.
- MoL has always relied on the free publicity of rude gestures, now he needs another kind of free publicity.
Hotel Tango
Am I the only one who never uses these type of sites anyway?
Agreed. I sometimes use them on routes I don't know - but only to identify the carriers and the options. Nowadays I almost always book directly with the carrier. For 99.99% of the time journeys go well but when they don't - I want to be able to reach out and get the attention of the carrier directly. I avoid:
"Oh but you booked through SantaScanner and so you must contact them for a refund/change/etc."
Yes, I possibly pay a bit more but I am old and have travelled a bit and yeah verily, I have seen the @rse end of hotels and airports.
So I pick the carrier, the airport and (often) the particular machine to operate the route. I buy from the carrier and will hold them to account.
drift
That said ... there was a time I was coming back from DUB on FR and checked the flight details on line the night before AND checked e-mail that morning before leaving the hotel. On arriving at check-in:
"The flights closed - you're late"
No [showing print out] I'm on time.
"The flight time was brought forward, you should've checked your emails."
I checked last night and this morning and you did not email me
Embarassed Silence
I've only got a hand case?
"Run"
I made the flight but lesson learnt, especially when VS did the same a few years later.