Hi,
There are more low cost airlines (i.e those that sell just a seat, and no frills) in Europe than there are anywhere else in the world. More than 50% of all the worlds loco’s can be found in Europe. In a couple of years time, there will be so many low cost airlines in Europe, all grabbing as many passengers as possible that there could be a major over – saturation in the market. There will be so many seats available, and not enough passengers filling them that the low cost industry could collapse.
I’m amazed at how quickly the big loco’s like Ryanair are expanding. They are introducing new services, routes, destinations, and new hubs here, there and everywhere that surely one day, they will run out of places to expand to. Is their growth sustainable? Are Ryanair’s pockets deep enough to be able to expand so quickly? Do they really need 300 aircraft to fly in just one single continent – isn’t a fleet of that size too large just for the single continent? Are they that popular with passengers?
A little competition – can you guess how many low cost airlines there are in Europe at the mo? No cheating! Can you name all of them?
Adam
By: Duesseldwarf - 22nd January 2004 at 21:44
Originally posted by Bhoy
you haven’t named all of them…Helvetic.com, for one…
And I’ll bet there’s more out there, too…
Monarch scheduled, for example.
Thatsa mah Bhoy!! God bless ya! 😀 😀 😀
By: adamdowley - 22nd January 2004 at 21:30
Originally Posted by Buddy Boy:
What defines low cost though?
This is probably debatable, but a low cost airline is usually one that sells tickets on a seat basis only. The passenger usually shouldn’t expect to find ‘luxuries’ onboard such as meals included in the seat price (although you can buy food in the aircraft, usually a sandwich), or IFE. the airline may utilise ticketless sales and could sell seats on a one way ticket only – i.e. no return ticket. You don’t get the luxury of lounges, either.
They don’t have any of the ‘frills’, keeping operational costs down, and therefore they can provide you with a cheap seat. The ‘low cost’ airlines that have some of the frills always seem to fail.
And anyway, in somewhere like Europe, where the air journeys are relatively short, who needs the ‘frills’?
adam
By: greekdude1 - 22nd January 2004 at 16:01
Originally posted by adamdowley
some where on the site it shows an airline called ‘Diet Air’ (flights within Thailand). apart from UA’s ‘Ted’, that must be the worst airline name ever! who is going to fly on it (?) – those on the Atkins?!?
I agree that Diet Air must be the single worst name ever. How can you clown on ‘TED,’ however? At least it was derived from the parent airline name: UniTED. By that token, it is creative. Besides, when you have names like MyTravelLite and bmibaby, ‘TED’ is absolute genious. The words ‘baby’ and ‘lite’ should never ever be included in an airline name.
By: Buddy Boy - 22nd January 2004 at 13:53
What defines low cost though?
Both FlyZoom and Canadian-Affair(using Thomas Cook) have launched what I would define as low-cost flights to Canada for this summer. Not sure if they would be counted.
By: EAL_KING - 22nd January 2004 at 13:46
LOL :p 😀
By: adamdowley - 22nd January 2004 at 13:38
some where on the site it shows an airline called ‘Diet Air’ (flights within Thailand). apart from UA’s ‘Ted’, that must be the worst airline name ever! who is going to fly on it (?) – those on the Atkins?!?
adam
By: EAL_KING - 22nd January 2004 at 13:34
Air 2000 Search and Compare Latest news about Air 2000
Flights between England (home base Manchester) and Portugal, Spain
Aer Arann Latest news about Aer Arann
Flights within Ireland and from Ireland to England, Scotland
Air Baltic Latest news about Air Baltic
Flights between Latvia (home base Riga) and Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine
Air Berlin Search and Compare Latest news about Air Berlin
Flights within Germany and from Germany (home base Berlin) to Austria, Cyprus, Egypt, England, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey
Air Finland Website in Finnish only! Latest news about Air Finland
Flights within Finland (home base Helsinki) and from Finland to France, Italy, Spain
Air Littoral Latest news about Air Littoral
Flights between France (home base Nice) and Algeria, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia
Air Luxor Lite Warning: Slow-loading home page Latest news about Air Luxor
Flights between Portugal and Azores, England, France, Ireland, Spain
Air Polonia Latest news about Air Polonia
Flights between Poland (home base Warsaw) and England
Air Scotland Search and Compare Latest news about Air Scotland
Flights between Scotland (home base) and Spain
Air Southwest Latest news about Air Southwest
Flights within England
Air Wales Latest news about Air Wales
Flights between Wales and England, Ireland, Ulster
Alpi Eagles Latest news about Alpi Eagles
Flights within Italy (home base Venice)
Azzurra Air Latest news about Azzurra Air
Flights from Italy (home base Milano) to Denmark, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain
Baboo Latest news about Baboo
Flights between Switzerland (home base Geneva) and Italy
Basiq Air Fake low-cost by KLM? Read here Search and Compare Latest news about Basiq Air
Flights between Netherlands (home base Amsterdam) and England, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain
BMI Baby Search and Compare Latest news about BMI Baby
Flights between England (home base) and Czech Rep., France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Wales
British European Search and Compare Name too generic to find any news
Flights between England (home base London) and Channel Islands, France, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Ulster
Deutsche BA Latest news about Deutsche BA
Flights within Germany and from Germany (home base) to France, Spain
Duo Search and Compare Latest news about Duo
Flights from England (home base Birmingham) and Scotland (home base Edinburgh) to Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland
EasyJet Search and Compare Latest news about Easyjet
Flights between England (home base London) and Denmark, France, Greece, Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Ulster
Evolavia Latest news about Evolavia
Flights between Italy (home base Ancona) and France, Russia, Spain
Excel Airways Search and Compare Latest news about Excel Airways
Flights from England and Scotland to Egypt, France, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Turkey
Fairline Austria Latest news about Fairline Austria
Flights between Austria (home base Graz) and Italy
Flying Finn Search and Compare Latest news about Flying Finn
Flights within Finland and from Finland to England
Fly Niki Name too generic to find any news
Flights between Austria (home base) and Egypt, Portugal, Spain
Germania Express Search and Compare Latest news about Germania Express
Flights within Germany (home base Berlin) and from Germany to Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey
German Wings Search and Compare Latest news about German Wings
Flights within Germany and from Germany (home base Cologne) to Austria, Czech Republic, England, France, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey
Globespan Globespan flight routings (text) Search and Compare Latest news about Globespan
Flights between Scotland (home base) and France, Italy, Spain
Hapag Lloyd Express Search and Compare Latest news about Hapag Lloyd Express
Flights within Germany (home base Cologne-Bonn) and from Germany to England, France, Italy, Spain
Hellas Jet Latest news about Hellas Jet
Flights between Greece (home base Athens) and Belgium, England, France, Switzerland
Helvetic Airways Latest news about Helvetic Airways
Flights between Switzerland (home base Zurich) and Austria, Belgium, Spain
Iceland Express Latest news about Iceland Express
Flights between Iceland (home base) and Denmark, England
InterSky Search and Compare Name too generic to find any news
Flights between Austria (home base Wien) and France, Italy, Switzerland
JetMagic Warning: Very slow loading home page! Search and Compare Latest news about JetMagic
Flights from Ireland (home base Cork) to Belgium, England, France, Italy, Spain, Ulster
Jet2 Warning: Very slow loading home page! Search and Compare Latest news about Jet2
Flights between England (home base Leeds-Bradford) and France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain
Meridiana Meridiana flight routings (text listing) Latest news about Meridiana
Flights within Italy (home base Florence) and from Italy to England, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain
Monarch Airlines Latest news about Monarch Airlines
Flights between England (home base London-Luton) and Gibraltar, Portugal, Spain
My Travel Lite My Travel Lite flight routings (text listing) Search and Compare Latest news about My Travel Lite
Flights between England (home base) and France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland
Nordic Airlink Website in Swedish only! Latest news about Nordic Airlink
Flights between Sweden (home base Stockholm) and Norway
Norwegian Air Shuttle Latest news about Norwegian Air Shuttle
Flights within Norway (home base) and from Norway to England, Portugal, Spain
Onur Air Latest news about Onur Air
Flights within Turkey
Ryanair Latest news about Ryanair
Flights between England (home base London-Stansted) and Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden
Scandjet Latest news about Scandjet
Flights between Sweden (home base) and Bosnia, Croatia
SkyEurope Warning: Very slow loading home page! Search and Compare Latest news about Sky Europe
Flights between Slovakia (home base Bratislava) and Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Switzerland
Skynet Airlines Warning: Very slow booking engine! Search and Compare Latest news about Skynet Airlines
Flights from Ireland (home base Shannon) to Netherlands, Russia
Snalskjutsen Latest news about Snalskjutsen
Flights within Sweden (home base) and from Sweden to France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland
SnowFlake Airlines Name too generic to find any news
Flights from Denmark (home base Copenhagen) and Sweden (home base Stockholm) to Czech Rep., France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Turkey
Sterling Search and Compare Latest news about Sterling
Flights between Denmark (home base Copenhagen) and France, Greece, Italy, Madeira, Norway, Spain, Sweden
Sun Express Name too generic to find any news
Flights between Turkey (home base Antalya) and Austria, Germany, Switzerland
Swedline Website in Swedish only! Latest news about Swedline
Flights within Sweden
ThomsonFly Latest news about ThomsonFly
Flights between England (home base Coventry) and France, Italy, Jersey, Spain
V Bird Search and Compare Name too generic to find any news
Flights within Germany (home base Niederrhein-Dusseldorf) and from Germany to Austria, Finland, France, Netherlands
Virgin Express Search and Compare Latest news about Virgin Express
Flights between Belgium (home base Brussels) and Denmark, England, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
VLM Airlines Latest news about VLM Airlines
Flights between Belgium (home base) and England, Germany, Guernsey, Italy, Jersey, Luxembourg and Netherlands
VolareWeb Search and Compare Latest news about VolareWeb
Flights between Italy (home base Milan and Venice) and Belgium, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Spain
Windjet Vola Warning: Booking engine doesn’t work and Website in Italian only! Name too generic to find any news
Flights within Italy (home base Sicily)
By: EAL_KING - 22nd January 2004 at 13:33
and fake low cost airlines
IMPORTANT NOTICE about fake or sponsored low cost airlines
ETN is very suspicious about low cost airlines which are only started by a major, high-fare airline to protect their high-fare business against the real low cost airlines like Ryanair and Southwest!
Very often these fake or sponsored low cost airlines are closed down once they have pushed their truly low cost competitors out of business!
If their low cost competitors are gone, the high-fare mother has again a monopoly and keeps the fares (often too) high.
KLM (with BuzzAway) and British Airways (with GoFly) have already tried this trick but luckily failed.
If you find any proof that a fake or sponsored low cost airline is trying to push a truly low cost competitor out of business, please notify ETN immediately.
ETN will publish your report and notify the proper authorities like the European Commission, US Federal authorities and others.
Also, when you know a low cost airline listed on this page is fake or sponsored, please use the form below to inform us.
Current listing of fake or sponsored low cost airlines:
Basiq Air (Europe) Started by KLM
Freedom Air (South Pacific) Started by Air New Zealand
Jetstar (South Pacific) Started by Qantas
Song Air (USA) Started by Delta Airlines
Tango Airlines (Canada) Started by Air Canada
Tiger Airways (Asia) Started by Singapore Airlines
By: EAL_KING - 22nd January 2004 at 13:31
can you beleive all these low cost airlines hae gone
Europe Aeris Bankrupt on 07Nov2003
Europe Agent Air Never started
Europe Air Bosnia Bankrupt
Europe Air Catalunya Bankrupt
Europe Air Freedom Bankrupt December 2003
Europe Airlib Express Bankrupt
Europe BerlinJet Bankrupt
Europe BuzzAway Sold by KLM to Ryanair
Europe Dream Air Never realized their Dream
Europe Fly Eco Will probably never start
Europe Free Airways Never started
Europe Fresh Aer Bankrupt
Europe GetJet Poland Never started
Europe Go Fly Sold by British Airways to EasyJet
Europe Goodjet Bankrupt
Europe Low Fare Jet Bankrupt
Europe Now Will probably never start
Europe Silesian Air Never started
Europe White Eagle Sold entire 737 fleet
Europe Windjet Never started
Africa Flamingo Airlines Bankrupt
By: Jeanske_SN - 22nd January 2004 at 12:50
Yeh VLM has good prices, but definitely not cheap!
By: tenthije - 22nd January 2004 at 10:54
VLM cheap? That will be the day!
By: adamdowley - 22nd January 2004 at 09:08
according to the source that i used (www.lowcostairlines.org), the following airlines are all loco’s in Europe. we could all argue that some of the airlines listed are not infact low cost airlines i.e. Air 2000.
1. Air 2000
2. Aer Arann
3. Air Baltic
4. Air Berlin
5. Air Finland
6. Air Littoral
7. Air Luxor Lite
8. Air Polonia
9. Air Scotland
10. Air Southwest
11. Air Wales
12. Alpi Eagles
13. Azzurra Air
14. Baboo
15. Basiq Air
16. BMI Baby
17. British European
18. Deutsche BA
19. Duo
20. EasyJet
21. Evolavia
22. Excel Airways
23. Fairline Austria
24. Flying Finn
25. Fly Niki
26. Germania Express
27. German Wings
28. Globespan
29. Hapag Lloyd Express
30. Hellas Jet
31. Helvetic Airways
32. Iceland Express
33. InterSky
34. JetMagic
35. Jet2
36. Meridiana
37. Monarch Airlines
38. Nordic Airlink
39. Norwegian Air Shuttle
40. Onur Air
41. Ryanair
42. Scandjet
43. SkyEurope
44. Skynet Airlines
45. Snalskjutsen
46. SnowFlake Airlines
47. Sterling
48. Sun Express
49. Swedline
50. ThomsonFly
51. V Bird
52. Virgin Express
53. VLM Airlines
54. VolareWeb
55. Windjet Vola
adam
By: steve rowell - 22nd January 2004 at 03:36
Originally posted by greekdude1
I don’t know about any Air Freedom, but Freedom Air (SJ) is from New Zealand.
You beat me to it
By: greekdude1 - 22nd January 2004 at 01:07
Which one of these many loco’s flies into OPO? And from where?
By: dan777 - 22nd January 2004 at 00:53
I think the only others ones which havent been mentioned are Air Polonia which operates low cost and charter routes. Travel Service of the Czech Republic is expected to announce their low cost subsidary – maybe tomorrow even. Plus Air Malta operate a low cost service from STN to MLA 3 times a week. The flights are in Air Malta colours with Air Malta crews etc but the service comes under Fares4U.
There’s also Nordic Airlink plus Air Luxor Light. What about Austrias Niki? Isnt that suppossed to become a low cost airline soon. The only European countries which dont have a proper low cost airline are Greece, Spain and France (even though easyJet has a base at ORY and Ryanair a base at GRO).
I know there are lots of locos but I think its o.k for each European country to have at least 1 loco so everyone can share the benefit of low cost flying. I think the only countries which are entering saturation are the U.K and Germany.
But also look at all the regional airports which have benefitted from the locos. In The U.K the only “main” airports which dont have a loco airline service are Humberside and Norwich . Airports which do have a U.K low cost airline service are:
Exeter – FlyBE
Southampton – FlyBE
Bristol – easyJet, FlyBE, Ryanair
Cardiff – bmibaby, Ryanair
London Gatwick – easyJet, Ryanair
London Luton – easyJet, Ryanair
London Stansted – easyJet, Ryanair
Birmingham – MyTravel Lite, Ryanair
Nottingham East Midlands – bmibaby, easyJet
Liverpool John Lennon – easyJet, Ryanair
Manchester – bmibaby, Ryanair
Leeds Bradford – Jet2, Ryanair
Durham Tees Valley – bmibaby, Ryanair
Newcastle – easyJet, Ryanair
Glasgow Prestwick – Ryanair
Glasgow International – flyglobespan, Air Scotland
Edinburgh – flyglobespan, Air Scotland, Ryanair
Bournemouth – Ryanair
Newquay – Ryanair
Blackpool – Ryanair
Aberdeen – Ryanair, easyJet
Inverness – easyJet
Coventry – Thomsonfly
Who thinks which ones will survive in the long term? Im not sure about the other European airlines but in the U.K I dont think MyTravel Lite or Air Scotland are gonna last for much longer.
Regards
dan777
By: Bhoy - 21st January 2004 at 23:25
you haven’t named all of them…
Helvetic.com, for one…
And I’ll bet there’s more out there, too…
Monarch scheduled, for example.
By: EAL_KING - 21st January 2004 at 22:34
“A little competition – can you guess how many low cost airlines there are in Europe at the mo? No cheating! Can you name all of them?”
he said europe but weve named em all can we now do globe low costs???
By: greekdude1 - 21st January 2004 at 22:21
I don’t know about any Air Freedom, but Freedom Air (SJ) is from New Zealand.
By: tenthije - 21st January 2004 at 22:19
a few of yours have already gone, and I believe Air Freedom is Australian
By: EAL_KING - 21st January 2004 at 21:12
1)air berlin
2)air freedom
3)air scotland
4)av8 air
5)basiq air
6)bmi baby
7)deutche ba
8)easyjet
9)easyjet switzerland
10)flybe
11)flying finn airways
12)germania
13)getjet
14)globespan
15)hapag lloyd express
16)iceland express
17)jet2
18)mytravel lite
19)meridiana
20)nownorwegian
21)planet air
22)ryanair
23)sky europe airlines
24)snowflake
25)sterling europe
26)vbird
27)virgin express
28)volareweb
29)Germanwings
30)Sibir Airlines
31)windjet
32)airwales
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January 21, 2004 at 8:04 pm