Don't expect $13 airfares to Europe any time soon

Do imminent $13 airfares between Boston and London sound too good to be true? That’s because they are.

A news report suggesting that Irish airline Ryanair would announce expansion of service from London's Stansted and Dublin airports to Boston, New York, Florida, San Francisco, and Los Angeles sent online readers into a frenzy of e-mailing the article all over cyberspace.

The problem is that the excitement appears a bit premature.

The initial story, which appeared Britain's News of the World tabloid on Sunday, quoted Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary on his plans for the carrier. The Associated Press picked up the report, which noted that Ryanair plans to offer flights as cheap as $12.70, before taxes.

The problem is that Ryanair has been talking about its plans for new service to the United States for a quite a while, but officials at Logan International Airport say as far as they can tell the carrier isn’t close to launching flights. They say they have had no formal talks with the European low-cost carrier, and two other airports in the region, T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I., and Boston Manchester Regional Airport in Manchester, N.H., say they haven’t been formally approached either.

Furthermore, the BBC quoted O'Leary today as saying that the airline was interested in new US flights but would only launch the routes if it could secure cheap long-haul aircraft from rivals.

"We haven't managed that yet, but we are hoping that in the middle of this recession ... that that opportunity might arise in the next 12 or 18 months,'' he said.

For a previous Globe story about Ryanair and its plans for low cost airfares to the United States, please click here.
(By Nicole C. Wong and Paul S. Makishima, Globe staff)