AN ENNIS woman originally from Ukraine has expressed her disgust at Ryanair’s decision to increase the price of flights from Poland as hundreds of Ukrainians attempted to flee their country following Russia’s invasion.
Mariya Nikishanova was attempting to purchase plane tickets from her Ennis home for her god-daughter, her two siblings and mother when she was redirected back on Ryanair’s website only to notice an increase of almost 200 zloty.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Mariya recounted, “I have my god-daughter, her mother and two daughters I invited them here, they are now crossing the Polish border, they have managed to get there. I was buying the tickets for Ryanair from the Polish town. The price was 543 zloty, she gave me the names and I put the correct spellings in, I started to buy and when I pressed pay on the Ryanair site it said to go back, I went back and the price was 715 zloty”.
“In a few minutes because there is a demand they raised the price by 200, it is almost 30 to 40 percent. I can pay that amount but imagine other people, it could be the last bit of money they have, why did they do that, send more flights, you will make your margins but don’t do this, it is nonsense, I know they do it a lot for its business model but this money is blood money,” she added.
A spokesperson for Ryanair told The Clare Echo that it has over 700,000 flights on sale equating at 130m seats at any time and “pricing is subject to demand”.
