The so-called budget airlines are mushrooming in Europe. Names like easyJet or RyanAir has quickly become household brand names in the region. But are they really cheap and, more importantly, safe?
Personally, whilst preparing my pleasure trips, I always check out the fares of such airlines prior to eventually making comparisons with some regular airlines, such as AirFrance, Lufthansa, and so forth.
As many of you already know, the main competitive edge of this phenomena is supposedly their cheap (or at least cheaper) fares. In order to enjoy this privilege to the maximum, it is imperative that we make a booking as early as possible. But are they really cheap? The answer is yes and no, depending on the airline companies.
Let me give you some examples. RyanAir is probably one the cheapest. However, although they publish their one-way fare as low as 10 euros on their website, be very careful with some hidden fees, as it does not yet include VAT, handling fee, credit card fee, etc, etc, etc. At the end you may end up paying 6 or 7 times or even more than what they publish. The same situation applies to easyJet. In my opinion, this one is even worse. Sometimes you will end up paying as much as what the regular ones charge you. At the end, I have always given up easyJet.
The best and the fairest by far, IMO, is Vueling, a Barcelona-based budget airline founded in 2004. Quite recent. I have flown them four times to date. All of them were satisfactorily on time and convenient. The timetables are pretty reasonable, not like RyanAir or easyJet whereas most of time you end up flying early morning or late evening. Whilst booking online, you can also select your own seat numbers without any additional charge! Try it with RyanAir and easyJet. You will have to pay extra to get the boarding priority, and still without seat numbers!
One of the reasons why they can push the fares down is the airport fee. To do this, the companies will choose the cheapest terminal at the airport. As a result, you will have to fly from Paris Beauvais for RyanAir, which is about 1.5 to 2-hr from Paris (and it's not even Paris!). So, if you fly from Paris to Milan which only takes around one hour flight, you may end up spending 5 to 6 hours in total, including check in, luggage collections, etc! easyJet flies from Paris Orly, which is my favorite airport due to the proximity to my place (20 minutes when the traffic is alright). Unfortunately, Vueling takes off from Charles de Gaulle, the main Paris airport. 40 minutes from my place! And of course, they choose the old terminal (terminal 1) to reduce the costs. Last time, I flew Vueling from Madrid Barajas Airport, they taxi their A320 towards the end of that bloody long airport! For those who have not been to this airport, be prepaped for a good long walking exercise. It was not too bad after all, unless when you are late, then you had better be a good sprinter.
What about safety? Hhmmm... never heard of anything worst by far with some of them. So far, I could see the aircraft conditions where I had been were much better than some of the regular airlines in, say, Indonesia or the Middle East area.
But then again, the choice is yours. Some of the companies like SmartWings, SkyEurope or AirBerline claim to be budget airline companies, yet it seems their definition of 'budget' is somehow different from that of the rest of us (if you know what I mean :-0). One more thing... I am sort of waiting for a France-based budget airline which does not exist yet. Maybe it's a good business opportunity.
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