Competition - which effectively began in Ireland with the arrival of Ryanair - has been good news for consumers. Initially, the new company tried so hard to keep its fares down it wound up losing money. Ryanair abandoned all its routes except for Dublin-London, and restructured. It is now the largest low-cost airline in Europe, adding new routes every year and ordering new aircraft to meet the demand. If Ryanair continues to grow at its current pace, it will have more planes and passengers than Aer Lingus within three years.
As well as driving down fares, passenger numbers have almost doubled on the routes Ryanair flies alongside Aer Lingus.
What follows is a list of Aer Lingus "super saver" fares from 1985. They are followed by what those fares represent in today's money with inflation taken into account, and the fare the State-owned airline actually charges today:
Aer Lingus Fare in Equivalent Current 1985 Today Fare
Dublin-London: £133 £186 £69 Dublin-Brussels: £222 £311 £99 Dublin-Paris: £225 £315 £99 Dublin-Rome: £388 £543 £319 Dublin-Zurich: £252 £352 £149 Dublin-Dusseldorf: £212 £297 £149 Dublin-Amsterdam: £239 £335 £149
