May 5, 2003 -- If you do your travel planning entirely on Web sites like Expedia, Orbitz and Priceline, you're losing out. Many of the world's least expensive, most convenient airlines don't show up on those travel agency Web sites at all.
You may know about JetBlue and Southwest, but how about Snowflake, Jet2 or Zip? It turns out that small, low-fare airlines dot the globe, providing cheap, cheerful, efficient and safe service at prices that are often a fraction of what the big boys charge.
To get the cheap fares, you often need to book on the budget airline's own Web site, which means you need to know in advance which airlines serve which airports.
Commuting around Europe to visit friends, British transportation analyst Alex Banks became fascinated with these budget carriers -- and with the lack of any central point of access for budget airlines on the Web. So he started www.flybudget.com, where he aims to chronicle every airline and airport served by low-fare carriers in the world. Banks updates the site twice a week from budget airlines' Web sites and trade magazines.
The savings you can make by using budget airlines are startling. We found a flight from London to Sicily in May on Ryanair for $100. The cheapest offer on Expedia was an Alitalia flight for $417. Within Canada, we found a flight from Montreal to Halifax on JetsGo for $205; the comparable flight on Expedia was on Air Canada for $270.
These airlines aren't fly-by-night operations, and they don't fly rustbuckets. Low-fare airlines are often in better financial shape and have safety records at least as good as the majors. Here in the US, United and American are desperately trying to stanch huge financial losses, while JetBlue and Southwest cheerfully make money; the same thing is going on in Europe, where RyanAir and EasyJet are both profitable and expanding.
If you're flying on a foreign budget airline, there are a few things to know, though. European budget airlines don't coordinate with international connections and don't accept excuses like "my other flight was late," so allow at least 3 hours -- or, even better, a day -- if you're switching from a transatlantic flight to a local budget carrier. And many European budget carriers fly into oddball subsidiary airports rather than the main airport for the city they're serving. Ryanair is the worst culprit here -- their airports "in" Frankfurt, Brussels, Barcelona and Stockholm are all an hour or more away from their namesake cities.
Check out Banks' full list of budget airlines and the routes they fly at www.flybudget.com.
