Airlines cash in on impending immigrant influx
That is six times the cost of flying in the other direction from London.
From January 1, new arrivals will enjoy unrestricted access to the UK as curbs imposed in 2005 are lifted.
British Airways is asking £623 for a three-hour journey from Romania’s capital Bucharest to London between next Saturday, January 4 and Tuesday 7.
Cut-price carrier easyJet only began running a new four-times-a-week service to Romania last October in anticipation of a surge of interest from migrants in 2014.
It is charging £215 one way between Bucharest and London Gatwick on Friday, January 3 or £222 one way on Monday, January 6. Flights on Sunday are sold out.
Prices begin to drop as the month progresses.
But flights from Sofia to London Gatwick cost more than double, with prices starting at £101 per person one way on January 1, rising to £283 on January 5.
The price structure follows the same pattern for both airlines throughout the first week of January. The sky-high prices are in stark contrast to the cost of flights going to either Romania or Bulgaria from Britain.
It costs £268 per person to fly one way on British Airways from London to Bucharest on Saturday January 4 – less than half the £623 it costs to travel in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, easyJet charges just £95.74 to fly one way from London Gatwick to Bucharest’s Otopeni airport between January 2 and January 4 or £126.74 on January 5 – yet passengers would fork out £215 per person to fly from Romania to the UK on the same dates.
Both British Airways and easyJet denied they were cashing in on demand from migrants.
A British Airways spokesman said: “We offer a range of different fare structures across our network and flights from London will normally be different from flights to London.
“This applies across the 75 countries we serve and is not specific to Romania or any other single route.”
An easyJet spokeswoman claimed the airline had no “evidence of significant increases to our passenger numbers from January 2014 on these routes”.
She said: “We remain committed to providing easy and affordable travel for our passengers and we advise people to try to book as early as possible to get the cheapest fares.”
Thousands of cash-strapped migrants are opting to travel to the UK by van.
Scores of adverts in Romanian expat newspaper Diaspora detail UK and Romanian-based firms willing to transport new migrants. Prices start at between £70 and £80 per person.
