Best UK based budget airline

I have flown Iberia several times this year and wasn’t overly impressed. The first flight was MAN-BCN ret in April. Although no food served, I bought a club sandwich which was quite good. Outbound flight was delayed 2 1/2hrs; 1 1/2 of which was sat in the a/c..not ideal. Ret flight was fine and price…£76 (bargain) and much cheaper than BMIbaby/Monarch.(£120-130)
This month I flew LHR-MAD-LIS ret and this gave a good comparison between BA and Iberia. Both BA flights went well, good service, decent free food/drinks. Iberia flight to LIS went ok until landing..(hardest I’ve experienced on a 757 and weather seemed good ). Return flight delayed 1 1/2hrs, worst a/c I ‘ve been on..dirty/cramped MD88. Landing was interesting..relatively steep/fast but afaik a characterisitc of this type. Fortuantely @80 passengers were connecting to our flight to LHR so they held the BA 767 @40mins. In summary, BA much better but I would fly Iberia again if the price was right.

Iberia seem to be the same as Swiss with regards to inflight Catering nowadays. 🙁

Iberia’s prices are not low cost but its’ service is. It really annoyed me because the crew ere good & I would have enjoyed the flight much more if I hadn’t had to pay for food. What annoys me more is that they try to advertise this as something positive for the passenger! The food was admittedly quite good but just far too expensive. Also, they have changed my return flight from EAS-MAD on 28th August so I now leave at 9am instead of 9:45. I do get 45 minutes more spotting in MAD before my flight to LHR but it will mean a 3 hour wait in MAD & I won’t get any food between 9:00am and 3:30pm (Spanish time). I wiksh I’d booked the codeshare on the BA flight leaving MAD at 1:30pm now.

The last thing that bugged me about this (sorry to bore you all with my moans) was that I transferred on to an Air Nostrum flight from MAD-EAS and received a fresh cup of coffee in a china mug with a metal spoon (which I “borrowed”!) and this was only a 55 minute flight. Air Nostrum also serve a full breakfast on morning domestic flights and a full meal on all European flights at mealtimes. Pull your finger out Iberia!

The only other LCC I have been on is Iberia! I was NOT impressed as when I booked my ticket I was told I’d get food & drinks included but by the time I flew, the policy had changed to their “Tu Menú” supposedly upgraded catering that you have to pay for. €10 for a plate of Spanish meats, a muffin & a drink does not represent good value for money to me but I’d been travelling since 5am & this was lunchtime so I had no choice. Had I known, I would have eaten in the airport.

Tu Menu seems to be getting bad press, along with Austrian Airlines’ meals which you have to pay for. Is Iberia really low cost, or just applying cost cutting measures?! :rolleyes:

I have flown BMIbaby, Hapag-Lloyd Express and Easyjet and I have to say all were excellent. I really liked BMIbaby’s allocated seats as it avoided the rush for the aircraft and the pushing and shoving. What I was less impressed with on baby was the price of drinks but these are expensive on all LCC’s. HLX were great with their leather seats, airshow and reasonably priced snacks (sandwich & a drink for €5 if I remember correctly). What I was less happy about was the scrum at the gate for the good seats but I still got row 1 as no one was beating me! EZY I really like as they allow me to visit my family in Swansea for a reasonable price and from/to convenient airports. Their crews are fantastic (I’ll be posting a trip report on my EZY flights last weekend as well as my upcoming ones this weekend some time next week) and the soft drinks are reasonably priced. I don’t know how they can justify £1.60 for a cup of water with a tea bag in it but I just avoid buying tea/coffee etc. Again I don’t really like free seating as it creates hell around the gates but I suppose it gets people on board quicker & so speeds up turnaround.

The only other LCC I have been on is Iberia! I was NOT impressed as when I booked my ticket I was told I’d get food & drinks included but by the time I flew, the policy had changed to their “Tu Menú” supposedly upgraded catering that you have to pay for. €10 for a plate of Spanish meats, a muffin & a drink does not represent good value for money to me but I’d been travelling since 5am & this was lunchtime so I had no choice. Had I known, I would have eaten in the airport.

OK, rant over, I enjoyed my flights on the 3 LCC’s I have travelled on. All were clean, relatively comfortable and above all punctual. I have never flown Ryanair but I would be apprehensive about booking a ticket with them as I wouldn’t want to be left stranded if anything went wrong.

Zoom have crew and a 767 based at Glasgow so it is just the same as Ryanair.

Zoom, Canadian airline, UK base, biggest base in the UK (Glasgow to Canada and Caribbean)

Ryanair, Irish airline, UK base, Buggest base in UK (London Stansted)

I have flown Easyjet, Ryanair, FlyBe and Go, and quite frankly trying to find any difference between any of them is seriously taking a fine tooth comb to all my flights. Thus to base my opinion on any of these airlines it would depend on the specifics of the flight, and I have flown on such a small amount of flights with the airline (As have a large amount of people on here) I can’t really offer a justified opinion.
For exmaple everyone say their Go flight was really good, but my experiences were really bad with, quite frankly, incompetent crew.
However I am not going to call Go, or any other airline “bad” or “good” based one just one experience with them.

BA I have flown with 20 times, so can probably justify my “excellent” rating given to them 😀

Mine would be Ryanair, [no joke] I had a v.pleasant flight with them from MAN to Dublin

I’m not convinced that easyJet is a budget airline.

I’ve never flown with them before, so know little about their punctuality, reliability, onboard service etc, but their prices are never right for me.

When Andy and I flew up to Glasgow with bmi earlier in the month, we paid £54 for each return ticket. However, easyJet wanted more than that to fly from Luton. Also, a flight to Edinburgh back in December was more than British Airways. Even when booking 8 weeks in advance, they wanted £84 return from Gatwick, whereas BA want £67.80.

Could it be that because easyJet are more recognised for having low fares, that all their lowest fares sell out before the other traditional carriers, whose fares have been dropped in recent years to compete? easyJet usually get me back to Scotland for less than £40 (usually £36) return including taxes. I don’t think that BA or BD have fares that low available at any time on the Scotland routes, do they? easyJet cannot afford to sell all its seats at the lowest fare, just like every other airline can’t afford to. They, like all proper airlines, use a very complex revenue management system to make sure they are selling their seats at the right fare at the right time on the right routes. I don’t see how they can’t be called a low-cost airline. 🙂

Like a few replies, I have only flown with easyJet and Ryanair and, of the two, I would always prefer to fly easyJet. I have never had any problems with easyJet but on a return flight from Dublin on Ryanair, there was a delay for which nobody could give a satisfactory explanation and, as planes arrived, the impression was given that they were flipping a coin to see where they would go next.

They are definitely UK based having their biggest base at STN, but they’re not UK…I don’t know what the word is….owned??

Ryanair are a Irish based airline and have been since i think it was the 80’s well before they rebranded as a low cost carrier!

The main reason for buying Buzz was because Buzz owned it own AOC with the CAA something Ryanair would love to get their hands on but they know their working pratices are outside Safety regulations etc that are set for an AOC by the CAA. The IAA (Irish Aviation Authority) are slightly more laxed, as im told by an EIN pilot, for getting an AOC and Ryanair did get theres way back when they were a Frills Airline and cared for passengers and planes etc properly…but then the unemotional Oleary came along and tipped it upside down!

It also is a hell of alot cheaper to register an aircraft in the UK than in Eire and thats one small reason why Ryanair want a UK AOC!

On the note of who i would fly with

Well any flybe flight my dad has been on as had a problem with it so they lost around 2000+ flights a year from his organisation as they were consistantly delayed and alot were cancelled! Consider they were all flying business class 2000 is alot of revenue loss with went to bmi and easyJet!

easyJet would be my number one choice but closely followed by Go as they were more expensive BUT a whole different kettle of fish. Im currently reading the book by the CEO Barbra Cassini and will report on it soon as their commitment to the airline was amazing and would beat my beloved easyJet any day!

In 3rd Id put My Travel Lite as i found the flights early, nice cabin crew and pleasent atmosphere!

Then 4th id put Flybe and 5th Ryanair

Havent flown bmi baby or Jet2 so cant comment on then but i only hear good things about Jet2!

I’m not convinced that easyJet is a budget airline.

I’ve never flown with them before, so know little about their punctuality, reliability, onboard service etc, but their prices are never right for me.

When Andy and I flew up to Glasgow with bmi earlier in the month, we paid £54 for each return ticket. However, easyJet wanted more than that to fly from Luton. Also, a flight to Edinburgh back in December was more than British Airways. Even when booking 8 weeks in advance, they wanted £84 return from Gatwick, whereas BA want £67.80.

Although Ryanair fares are probably the best around and I have flown them about 40 or so times, their service and customer care simply sucks compared to easyJet. There isn’t really much competition.

I notice Ryanair doesn’t really get a mention here
are they really that bad? just asking as i’ve never flown them
but flown easyjet once and really enjoyed my experience
as it was my first time flying

Seems that overall, easyJet win the popular prize 🙂

I can’t see how you think that Zoom is a UK based budget airline?
They are entirely Canadian I’d say.

Zoom is canadian based and is therefore not a correct choice here.

I can’t see how you think that Zoom is a UK based budget airline?
They are entirely Canadian I’d say.

He’s possibly referring to the large stake in the company held by Motherwell tycoon’s Hugh and John Boyle ?

My favourite UK based loco by the way is Fly Globespan, very friendly and efficient service.

I can’t see how you think that Zoom is a UK based budget airline?
They are entirely Canadian I’d say.

1. Zoom
2. Ryanair
3. FlyGlobespan
4. Easyjet
5. Go-Gly (Now easyjet 🙁

Although I hate LCC’s, Easyjet to be fair do extremely well in my opinion. My vote has to go to them, have never had a problem with easy.