I always look forward to a large hotel breakfast, avoiding only melon balls on principle, what with the awful suffering caused to the poor melons. Today there’s a buzz of sombre conversation at the front bar where locals perch on bar stools as they down espressos, but they glare back. The manager waves me away as if I’m a beggar on the take. ‘Petit déjeuner. Ze back room.’ I sit at one of only two place settings, have cornflakes from one of two bowls, take OJ in one of the two glasses and eat two of the last four croissants. It would not be unreasonable for me to assume that one remaining guest has yet to dine.
Before I check out, I surf the TV and accidentally stumble upon Channel 17. I get twenty seconds of Olga on the same chaise longue until the broadcast ends precisely at 10am. I wait ten polite minutes to check out but the manager gives me that knowing look. ‘That porno channel just finished, eh?’ Upon my polite enquiry the manager shows me the timetable of the bus from the Gare to the airport. One bus leaves at 8.04am and the next leaves at 11.50am. I have missed the first bus and the second is too late for me. There are four hours between buses. They don’t use a bus timetable around here, they use a calendar.
I arrive by taxi at Beauvais terminal one nano-second after the Paris bus deposits ninety ginger Irish passengers plus bags. I stand in line out the door, drag my bag across bare concrete and check in by the building site hoardings. The overhead screens have twee pictures of little thatched cottages because all Irish houses still look this. Past security I wait inside the tent, which upon close inspection is a marquee in need of a party. One moment the apron is deserted and the next there’s 210 million dollars of Boeing’s finest hardware; all three aircrafts sporting the angelic harp on the tail with the tricolour and the EI aircraft number on the fuselage. The aircraft are bound for Dublin, Shannon and Milan.
Who ever thought a Paddy airline could fly Italians from an airport 80 km from Paris to near Milan for one euro? I enjoy a swirl of national pride. I want to strut my stuff inside the tent and tell everyone that those shiny aircraft are ours. Sure, it’s all we have as a nation: Guinness, Waterford Crystal (now made in Poland), Bono and the lads, Boyzone, Westlife, Saint Bob, the baldy girl who did the Prince cover, Terry Wogan, the ex-James Bond actor, St Paddy’s Day, Riverdance, the shamrock, the craic and this airline. Plus literary chaps like Joyce, Shaw, Yeats, Beckett, Swift and meself, and also the Corrs, particularly Andrea. And not forgetting Sharon of the RTE News, Noodles Carey from the weather and Lisa who does the weather forecast on Sky News.
Mick shares my patriotic enthusiasm. ‘They don’t call us the fighting Irish for nothing. We have been the travel innovators of Europe. We built the roads and laid the rails. Now it’s the airlines. I’m Irish and we don’t have to prove anything. We are God’s own children. We bow down to nobody. The airline industry is full of bullshitters, liars and drunks and we excel at all three in Ireland. We will be the world’s biggest airline. There is no shortage of ambition here. We’ll stuff every one of them in Europe, we won’t be second or third and saying, “Didn’t we do well?” We are a small Irish company, out there stuffing it to the biggest airlines all over Europe, and of course that feels good.’
Customer Service
Ruinair Ltd
Dublin Airport
Dear Sirs,
I wish to complain about my recent flight from Dublin to Beauvais.
I boarded early to get a good seat at the rear of the aircraft. I remind you that your website states the following: ‘We operate a free seating policy, so seats cannot be pre-booked. However, we operate a priority boarding system which allows you to choose your own seat on board.’ There were seats vacant in rows at the rear but when I went to sit there a cabin crew girl told me I could not sit in these rows. When I asked her why not, she replied, ‘Balance.’ I said I was fine and I hadn’t touched a drop of hard liquor all day. When I asked her what she meant, she did not know, but kept saying ‘For balance.’ Clearly she was repeating something she had been told without fully understanding it. I have travelled on many other airlines and have seen passengers sit in these rows and we all lived to tell the tale to our loved ones. Now I am worried that if I sit ever again in these rows on any aircraft I may single-handedly cause the aircraft to topple over and plunge to mother earth, and all because of very little old me. I might add there were some rather large Americans on board who sat randomly all over the aircraft and they were a far greater danger to the ‘balance’ of the aircraft, since I am only a mere 12 stone and they were humungous.
My complaint is that although you state passengers can choose their own seat on board, clearly this is not the case. I look forward to your detailed and ‘balanced’ reply.
Yours etc,
Disgusted of Dublin
Four days later…
Dear Mr Kilduff,
I acknowledge receipt of your letter.
I apologise for any inconvenience caused by not being able to sit in certain rows on your flight with us.
Whilst we do operate a free seating policy, on recommendation from the manufacturers Boeing, we are advised when an aircraft is not filled to a certain capacity it is necessary to cordon off three rows of seats. This is for weight and balance purposes.
Once again I apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope that the above is sufficient information.
Yours sincerely
For and on Behalf of RUINAIR LIMITED
More bolloxology. And here’s why. A few months later I read in the newspaper of a former Ruinair cabin crew member sacked for allegedly falling asleep on the job who was ‘delighted’ that a tribunal has found she was unfairly dismissed. One Ms Vanessa Redmond was fired after a passenger complained she had blocked off rows of seats and fallen asleep while reading a novel on a Dublin to Durham flight. The passenger, who was married to a Ruinair manager, said he believed he saw Ms Redmond fall asleep. Ms Redmond denied all the charges apart from blocking off a row of seats, which her Ruinair colleagues testified was common practice because they didn’t want passengers ‘in their faces’. Balance, me arse.
How to Build Your Own Five Billion Euro Airline
1985
Incorporate your new airline in the Republic of Ireland on 28 November with £1 of share capital ‘to carry on the business of general carriers and forwarding agents and to use machines of all kinds capable of being flown in the air,’ as if there’s much choice other than using aircraft. Seriously consider calling your airline Trans Tipperary Air but then decide to name it after yourself. You know that one in ten new airlines succeed.
The late Tony Ruin was born in Thurles in 1936, worked as a clerk with Aer Lingus in Shannon, ran the Aer Lingus operation in New York’s JFK, dabbled in aircraft leasing and set up Guinness Peat Aviation with Aer Lingus and a City of London bank, hanging on to a 10 per cent personal stake in a fledgling enterprise ultimately worth millions years later. Tony once told a senior manager, ‘The world is made up of fuckers and fuckees and in our relationship, you are my fuckee.’ On an Aer Lingus flight from London to Dublin Tony once encountered a senior Aer Lingus executive who publicly ridiculed him for flying on his arch rival, to which Tony replied: ‘I had to fly on your airline—all our Ruinair flights are full today.’ Tony once admitted to being happiest when stepping either on or off an airplane, much like myself.
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