Attending all three group games at next summer’s European Championships in France is likely to leave Irish fans with 1,000km of travel between venues.
The Republic will be in the fourth pot of seeds when the draw takes place in Paris on December 12th and – unless they are drawn in Group A – that means Irish fans will be forced to travel significant distances.
The worst-case scenario would be Group B which would involve starting the campaign in Bordeaux before making the 805km journey north for the second game in Lille four days later.
The final group game would take place another five days later 750km to the south in Saint-Etienne, bringing the total distance to 1,555km.
The best-case scenario would be Group A in which all the games for the team in the fourth pot are clustered in the north, leaving fans with a 445km roundtrip between Lens, Paris and Lille.
Groups C, D, E and F would involve total distances of 945km, 1,125km, 1,265km and 965km respectively.
Aer Lingus will operate 160 flights a week to and from France with 10 routes from Dublin and two from Cork. The tournament venues it will serve are Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Nice, Lyon and Paris.
Accessible
Director of communications Declan Kearney said the hosting of the tournament in France would make it “the most accessible location to date” from an Irish fan’s perspective.
Ryanair head of communications Robin Kiely said the airline had seen “a huge increase” in visits from Irish customers to its website since the final whistle went in the Aviva on Monday night.
While prices are likely to change on an almost daily basis, a flight to Paris with Aer Lingus on June 10th with a return flight to Dublin on June 19th could be purchased last night for €388, while the same journey with Ryanair cost €214.
Many fans are said to be taking a more novel approach to the trip, with Celtic Campervans managing director Stephen Bradshaw reporting that approximately half his fleet of campervans had already gone.
The company is running a 20 per cent “early bird offer”, which means a six-bed van can be rented for a week in June at €1,280, or a four-bed van for €1,000.
Anyone planning to make the trip by road can avail of services being run by Irish Ferries. The Oscar Wilde sails continuously between Rosslare and Cherbourg and leaves Ireland every second day. The Epsilon runs from Dublin to Cherbourg once a week.
A spokesman for the company said it was busy making plans to determine how fans could best be accommodated alongside the many thousands of Irish holidaymakers who would normally travel to France at that time.
Bumping prices
The spokesman said prices for crossings in June could not yet be determined, but insisted Irish Ferries “doesn’t have any history of bumping the prices when there’s something special going on”.
A ticket to Cherbourg from Rosslare on Friday could be purchased for €129 last night while a return journey on Saturday week cost €93.
Most travel agents said they could not calculate what the cost of package trips would be before the draw has been made, but Stein Travel said it could have a 10-night package that would include flights, three-star hotel accommodation and transfers to the three group games for €999. A package for the last two matches with six nights accommodation could be available for €799.
