photo: Wikipedia
I will be attending a Travel Blogger conference, TBEX, in Killarney, Ireland in October. Consequently, I have regularly (okay, obsessively) been checking the price of flights from NYC to Dublin, Shannon and Kerry.
Aer Lingus has consistently been showing the best fare to Shannon (the low $500s) – and it’s an attractive choice because the flights are non-stop from JFK. Also, I haven’t explored the western part of Ireland yet.
Usually, when I’m checking, I restrict the search to New York flights to JFK and LGA, but today I included the whole range of New York airports.
A much cheaper price came up – $336 – RT between SWF (Stewart Airport in Newburgh, NY) and SNN (Shannon, Ireland).
Djibouti Airlines? I never heard of it. How could that be? Non-stop from New York to Shannon?? What?
Honestly, I am not Stefan Krasowski or Lee Abbamonte or Justine Kirby – I am not looking to travel to every country in the world. I never even heard of the country of Djibouti.
A little research and I learned from Wikipedia that Djibouti is a small African country bordered by Eritrea (another country I’ve never heard of) in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast (ye, I know Ethiopia and Somalia). The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east.
Wait, the plot gets weirder.
A little more Wikipedia research, and I learned that Djibouti Airlines has been defunct since at least 2009.
Djibouti Airlines was established on 1 February 1996 by former Puntavia director Moussa Rayaleh. Low-fare commuter services commenced on 5 February with first flights to Dire Dawa and Hargeisa using a Let L-410 UVP-E aircraft. The company was owned by Moussa Rayaleh Waberi (Chairman) (97.3%) and other investors (2.7%) and had 46 employees (at March 2007).[1] It had its commercial transport license revoked on 30 July 2009.
(I am not an expert on airlines the way Gary Leff is – I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knew all about Djibouti Airlines and it’s demise!)
A little more research and head scratching. And then….
VOILA – MYSTERY SOLVED!
I discovered the answer to this puzzle in a travel forum on Rick Steve’s Website.
You see, the airline code for Djibouti Airlines was D8. The codes used for Norwegian Airlines are D8 and DY. Ergo the confusion – – many flight aggregators mistakenly list Djibouti Airlines instead of Norwegian Airlines.
So, the mysterious cheap flight was not on some obscure defunct African carrier, but on none other than Norwegian Airlines!
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
The other option worth looking at is to fly to Dublin – which has more carriers/flights operating from the US and may be cheaper – and then Aer Lingus operates a twice-daily commuter service DUB – KIR for about $100 round-trip.
Yes, I’ve looked into all of it. Shannon is actually cheaper and closer. There is a good chance that I’ll stay on after the conference for a media trip which will end in Dublin. So it might be Shannon going and Dublin returning. How I structure this also depends on whether I pay for the ticket or use points or miles, but honestly, if prices are around $500, it seems smarter to pay.