It's reached a point at which you feel ripped off if you buy a plane ticket for anything over 99 cent.
Of course, when you add taxes and sundries on top of that, it comes out at about €60 per ticket. And there are the usual added charges. Check-in luggage is extra. You'll have to pay for the use of a wheelchair. A smile is a little too much to ask for. Food will cost more than the flight. If the pilot wants a sandwich too, then there'll be a mandatory whip-round among the passengers.
Who would have thought that people would be so desperate to pay a few euro less, even if it meant travelling to an airport that might be in a whole other country from their actual destination? Even if it involved taking a subsequent bus journey that is almost as long as their flight? It has revolutionised the weekend city break, because between check-in, delayed flight and bus trip from hub airport, the average traveller only has enough time to hop off the bus, get their picture taken beside the nearest cathedral, and then hop back on the bus to start the journey back.
The secret of cheap airline success comes in the quick turnover of planes, so the air steward might finally get around to you once she has cleaned the plane, boarded the passengers, stacked the food, popped the bonnet and checked the oil and tyres. Then she has to spend half an hour shoving people's oversized bags into the overhead luggage compartments, because people who travel with budget airlines are fixated with the idea of taking only one carry-on bag with them, even if that bag is the size of a small bouncy castle.
And once all that has been done and the plane takes off, the airline has a short time to sell you things. Food, duty-free, car rental, hotels, scratchcards. What is it with the need to keep passengers distracted on a flight? If an inspector walked through the DART selling scratchcards and miniature cans of Coke, he would be thrown out at the first available station.
The sales pitch subsidises the seats, though, and the scratchcards are only the beginning of what is proving to be a profitable combination of aviation and casual gambling. This is likely to be expanded in coming years, when people will be able to pass the time with games on hand-held screens and playing the odds:
that the flight will be late: 2/1
that the nervous-looking passenger on your right will cry during take-off: 11/10
that you've developed a thrombosis because the seat space is so tight your knees are squashed against your ears: 6/4.