I was directly caught up in the grounding of Boeing flights last week.
An imminent trip had to be hastily re-booked after my Norwegian Air plane was no longer available.
The airline offered an alternative but the times didn’t suit and I plumped for Aer Lingus instead. Disappointingly, it issued a refund without blinking so I had to shelve my righteousness (and the chapter and verse I had dug out to deploy on my consumer rights).
As I’m booking for a party, it was a little chaotic as everyone was scrambling for the same seats and the prices were rising. First world problems, I know, and on the back of the terrible tragedy in Ethiopia.
Nevertheless, despite my urgency I took some time to carefully enter the details of all my co-travellers. Aer Lingus, like most airlines, doesn’t tolerate mistakes kindly. There’s plenty to catch you out, and it’s always a bit of a hurdle checking the spellings, dates of birth, maiden, married and divorced names of everyone to match to current passports. Doing it all on a fiddly app is much worse, though.
So I feel sorry for Wicklow man Luke Bradley. His attempt to take a Ryanair flight to England was scuppered when he discovered his name had been auto-corrected by the app to ‘Lukewarm’. A mild giggle, I know, but while the flight cost him €50 the airline charges €115 for a name change.
His incredulous live chat with the call centre went a bit viral, especially after he attempted to convince them that Lukewarm wasn’t even a name.
He got a tepid response, and he was advised to book a new flight which was cheaper than reverting to his own name. How come the airline always wins in the end?
A post-Coppers world will thwart economists
The affordability of housing is often measured using a fictional garda and nurse as a benchmark of what salaries are needed to pay rent or a mortgage.
Well it seems now the garda and nurse might have bigger problems; their favourite haunt is about to be sold.
Copper Face Jacks has been put on the market and depending who buys it, and for what, if the iconic bar (seven bars actually) is indeed to be no more, then where are the budget-favoured couple ever going to meet? Their fictional lives, so beloved of economists, will be thwarted before it even starts.
It’s a tragedy too for GAA fans. The ubiquitous roar, made famously in Croker by Dublin football captain Bryan Cullen in 2011 as he hoisted the trophy high in the air … “See yiz all in Coppers!” was a clarion call to the thousands of awe-struck youngsters whose role models will now have to get hammered elsewhere.
Surely someone needs to call Josepha Madigan. The Arts Minister will surely recognise the cultural heritage of the venue and want to save for the State a national emblem to the frivolity of youth.
With a price tag of €40m, I think a rural levy should cover it.
Woolly mice help us turn clock back 4,000 years
Speaking of reviving old legends, scientists claim they have taken a significant step toward bringing the woolly mammoth, extinct for some 4,000 years, back to life.
In a nod to ‘Jurassic Park’, they have transplanted cells from a preserved mammoth fossil who met its demise 28,000 years ago into a mouse and recorded “positive biological activity”, according to science journal ‘Nature’.
Reporting the “potential for nuclear reconstitution”, it said that further cell division didn’t take place due to DNA damage. Although, is it just me thinking a mouse probably wasn’t the best idea, either?
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Sinead Ryan: 'Ryanair should auto-correct its tepid service'
Sinead Ryan: 'Ryanair should auto-correct its tepid service'
I was directly caught up in the grounding of Boeing flights last week.
An imminent trip had to be hastily re-booked after my Norwegian Air plane was no longer available.
The airline offered an alternative but the times didn’t suit and I plumped for Aer Lingus instead. Disappointingly, it issued a refund without blinking so I had to shelve my righteousness (and the chapter and verse I had dug out to deploy on my consumer rights).
As I’m booking for a party, it was a little chaotic as everyone was scrambling for the same seats and the prices were rising. First world problems, I know, and on the back of the terrible tragedy in Ethiopia.
Nevertheless, despite my urgency I took some time to carefully enter the details of all my co-travellers. Aer Lingus, like most airlines, doesn’t tolerate mistakes kindly. There’s plenty to catch you out, and it’s always a bit of a hurdle checking the spellings, dates of birth, maiden, married and divorced names of everyone to match to current passports. Doing it all on a fiddly app is much worse, though.
So I feel sorry for Wicklow man Luke Bradley. His attempt to take a Ryanair flight to England was scuppered when he discovered his name had been auto-corrected by the app to ‘Lukewarm’. A mild giggle, I know, but while the flight cost him €50 the airline charges €115 for a name change.
His incredulous live chat with the call centre went a bit viral, especially after he attempted to convince them that Lukewarm wasn’t even a name.
He got a tepid response, and he was advised to book a new flight which was cheaper than reverting to his own name. How come the airline always wins in the end?
A post-Coppers world will thwart economists
The affordability of housing is often measured using a fictional garda and nurse as a benchmark of what salaries are needed to pay rent or a mortgage.
Well it seems now the garda and nurse might have bigger problems; their favourite haunt is about to be sold.
Copper Face Jacks has been put on the market and depending who buys it, and for what, if the iconic bar (seven bars actually) is indeed to be no more, then where are the budget-favoured couple ever going to meet? Their fictional lives, so beloved of economists, will be thwarted before it even starts.
It’s a tragedy too for GAA fans. The ubiquitous roar, made famously in Croker by Dublin football captain Bryan Cullen in 2011 as he hoisted the trophy high in the air … “See yiz all in Coppers!” was a clarion call to the thousands of awe-struck youngsters whose role models will now have to get hammered elsewhere.
Surely someone needs to call Josepha Madigan. The Arts Minister will surely recognise the cultural heritage of the venue and want to save for the State a national emblem to the frivolity of youth.
With a price tag of €40m, I think a rural levy should cover it.
Woolly mice help us turn clock back 4,000 years
Speaking of reviving old legends, scientists claim they have taken a significant step toward bringing the woolly mammoth, extinct for some 4,000 years, back to life.
In a nod to ‘Jurassic Park’, they have transplanted cells from a preserved mammoth fossil who met its demise 28,000 years ago into a mouse and recorded “positive biological activity”, according to science journal ‘Nature’.
Reporting the “potential for nuclear reconstitution”, it said that further cell division didn’t take place due to DNA damage. Although, is it just me thinking a mouse probably wasn’t the best idea, either?
Source: Read Full Article