roaming

When I moved to Grenoble, there was rumor that the city's airport, originally built for the 1968 Olympics but all but dormant ever since, was about to be resuscitated, kissed from its sleep of decades by the inescapable arrival of budget airlines. Every other little airport in Europe would be just a few euros and even fewer hours away. Progress has indeed been made over the last year. London, Bristol, Stockholm and Warsaw are now closer to home than even Paris, never mind the TGV. Just before Christmas, Rome was added to the growing list of destinations.

I happened across blu-express's web page today, which tells of incredible deals from Grenoble to Rome. If you fly in March, they ask for as little as five euros, one way. Intrigued, I looked a little closer. Besides the inescapable taxes, they also add a fuel surcharge of sixteen euros each way. And while I'm all in favor of fueling the plane before jumping over the Alps, it would seem to me fair business to include that cost in the advertized price of the ticket.

And if it's not, I'm left wondering why Alitalia, which bussed me to Chicago the other day for about €350 excluding taxes, didn't advertize their offer as "€90* (*plus 300% fuel surcharge)".