Cheap Flight News Europe

XL.com the web side of Excel Airways has a page on its site with the latest flight offers. XL.com operates differently to low cost airlines in that it discounts flights that have not been sold close to the departure date. This is because Excel Airways are a Charter Airline that also run scheduled flights.
The cheapest flight on offer this week is £51 GBP return, including all taxes and charges to Tenerife from East Midlands Airport. The £59 (inclusive) flight departs Tuesday 2 May 2006 and returns seven days later. If that is too short notice, how about Faro, Portugal from London Gatwick departing Thusday 4 May 2006? Have a look at their offer flights for lots more good deals.

Germanwings latest offer also comes to an end on Monday 1 May 2006. The German low cost airline is offering seats for 9 euros one way plus taxes and charges. Look up www.germanwings.com for details and terms and conditions.
Photo © Germanwings

Ryanair's latest sale will come to an end on Monday 1 May 2006. They are selling seats on flights for 14 pence plus taxes and charges. The flights must be booked 14 days in advance for the period from 12 May 2006 to Wednesday 25 October 2006, the earliest flight in the sale is likely to depart mid May. This is a good chunk of the 2006 calendar, but as is to be expected there are some extensive blackout periods. These include July, August and Public Holidays, school holidays and sporting events. No cheap tickets to the World Cup then! That said there are some excellent deals. I have purchased a flight to Pisa.


You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Vueling the Spanish low cost airline is selling 100,000 seats across its European network for 10 euros each way, plus taxes and charges. The offer runs until midnight CET on Tuesday, 2 May 2006. Seats can be booked on flights in May, June and July 2006. Vueling flies to all over Spain from its main bases in Barcelona and Madrid. It also flies to Paris, Brussels, Venice, Milan Lisbon and Amsterdam.


You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Iceland Express the budget airline flying from the fascinating Island that is Iceland has some of its Icebreaker Fares on offer for next week. For £9 GBP one way plus taxes and charges seats on flights from London Stansted to Reykavik can be booked departing on the following days:

• Thursday 4 May 2006
• Saturday 6 May 2006
• Wednesday 10 May 2006

In addition Stockholm to Reykavik can be booked for £5 one way plus taxes and charges on Wednesday 17 May 2006.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Smart Wings the Czech Republic based low cost airline is to include a light refreshment and a non alcloholic drink in its seat prices. Other drinks and snacks will still have to be paid for. The reason behind this move is unclear, unless it is to stimulate sales of additional alcoholic or hot drinks. The new service will start on 1 May 2006.

Aer Arann has flights from Cardiff to Galway on sale. The airline will fly the route three times weekly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 25 May 2006. This brings the total number of routes flown from Cardiff International Airport to four. Seats staret at £29.99 one way including taxes and charges.

Meanwhile, the proposed base at Liege has been removed from Aer Arann's web site as they concentrate on the new Cardiff routes.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

In a recent survey by European consumer organisations in France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, and Portugal Vueling was rated as the best Spanish Airline. From a total of 8,600 surveys, Vueling topped the airlines in its home country with a 7.16 rating. Out of the 110 airlines analysed, Vueling came in at 23.

Wizz Air, one of the leading low cost airlines in Central and Eastern Europe, today revealed that it would be flying to Targu Mures in Romania from Budapest. This brings to seven the Central and Eastern European countries served by the airline. It also flies to Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia.

The new service will commence on 14 July 2006 with three flights per week offered at first.


József Váradi, Chief Executive Officer of Wizz Air said: "Our entry into Romania is a highly important step forward to reinforce our market leadership in Central and Eastern Europe. We aim at establishing the Wizz brand by offering unprecedented low fares and comfortable air travel to the citizens of Romania well before the country's EU accession. Targu Mures Airport is the perfect location for Wizz to serve the millions of inhabitants of Transylvania and those who wish to experience the unique nature and cultural life of the region. This is the first step and many more are to come."

Following on from the last post, with Ryanair vacating their slot at Cardiff International, Aer Arann is to step in from 1 May 2006 and operate the route. I wonder if they will offer a rescue deal for stranded Ryanair customers or juts carry on in a less publicity grabbing style offering a service for passengers who want to fly the route?
Still on the subject of Aer Arann, the small Irish low cost airline. From 28 May 2006 they will connect Dublin and Knock with a daily service. The flights depart Knock at 7.15am Monday to Saturday and 9.00am on Sunday and departing Dublin at 6.15pm. The journey time will be a mere thirty five minutes.

Ryanair is to cease flying the Cardiff <> Dublin route from 1 May 2006. The airline cites Cardiff International Airports rise in charges which Ryanair claim to be 350%. Ryanair will transfer passengers who have already booked to / from Bristol by coach until 10 May 2006.
The increase in airport charges hasn't deterred another Irish low cost carrier, Aer Arann who will take over the route on 1 May 2006.

Thomsonfly the TUI owned low cost airline has added another route to its network. This time passengers can fly from Cardiff to Jersey and vice versa. Flights start on 25 May 20906 and are on sale now. They start from a cheap £16.99 one way, including taxes and charges. The airline will operate the route on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Monarch Airlines is offering up to 60% web discount for flights booked up to midnight on Tuesday 25 April 2006 (UK time). The discount is worth £16 off every return flight booked up until then.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

EasyJet who had to pull its proposed service to Corsica when the French Authorities intervened has run into similar difficulties in Italy. The UK based low fares airline was to fly Milan to / from Olbia, Sardinia but has been refused permission by ENAC (Ente Nazionale Aviazione Civile -– the Italian National Civil Aviation Authority.
ENAC ruled that Meridiana another low cost airline had sole rights to service the route under a Public Service Obligation (PSO). This ia a similar case to their Paris / Ajaccio route that easyJet had to pull.
EasyJet have referred the case to the courts.
It is good to see that the airline continues to strive for an open skies agreement across Europe.

Wizz Air today announced that from 14 July 2006 it would be flying to Cork, Ireland from Katowice in Poland. Wizz Air is one of the leading low cost airline in operating from Central / Eastern Europe. It has a strong base in Poland. The airline is the leading budget carrier serving Poland a country which has shown tremendous growth in air travel over the last year.

In their latest offer bmibaby is offering flights from the United Kingdom to destinations throughout Europe starting at a very low £14.99 one way including taxes and charges. The low cost airline owned by BMI, flies from Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Durham Tees Valley, Edinbugh, Glasgow, London Gatwick, Manchester and Nottingham East Midlands. They also offer low cost flights on BMI flights from London Heathrow. Routes for £14.99 include most of their UK airports to Belfast International, as well as flights to Cork, Jersey, Newquay. Flights to Paris and Amsterdam start at £19.99 one way.

I have just booked flight to Cork and seats were selling out fast so you'd better be quick.

XL.com the low cost airline voted Best Charter Airline ny the Daily Telegraph has some excellent offers on for Half Term. Here are a few of the cheap flight deals on offer:

• Gatwick to Malaga departing 30 May 2006 from £128 return
• Gatwick to Alicante departing 25 May 2006 from £183
• Birmingham to Tenerife departing 26 May 2006 from £264
• Exeter to Arrecife departing 25 May 2006 from £246
• Gatwick to Corfu departing 29 May 2006 from £273
• Gatwick to Las Palmas departing 29 May 2006 from £237

Prices are return including taxes and charges.
Look up their website for more information including inclusive holiday deals.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Thomsonfly have released more Winter 2006 /07 routes at some very low prices. Here are some of the latest tranche of cheap flights released by the airline:

Jersey from Doncaster & Coventry starting at £16.99 one way inclusive
Prague from Bournemouth, Luton (New routes) & Doncaster starting at £19.99
Barcelona from Coventry starting at £19.99
Valencia from Coventry starting at £19.99

All quoted prices are one way including taxes and charges.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

SkyEurope the Central European budget airline will add Dubrovnik and Split to its destinations served from Prague. The two Croatian cities are popular tourist destinations. The airline will operate two flights per week to each city from 3 June 2003.

Wizz Air is giving away 100,000 free seats (well almost £0.02) between now and 17 April 2006. All you will need to pay is the taxes and charges. Flights between 25 April 2006 and 15 June 2006 are included in this offer.

Just a short post to wish wish everyone a very Happy Easter. We hope you have a lovely weekend, what ever you decide to do.

Ryanair is to add nine new destinations to those served from its base at Frankfurt Hahn in Germany. From 25 October 2006 it will fly to:

• Fez (3x / week) from 26 October
• Granada (3x / week) from 26 October
• Kaunus (4x / week) from 25 October
• Krakow (Daily) from 25 October
• Marrakech (4x / week) from 25 October
• Murcia (Daily) from 25 October
• Trieste (3x / week) from 26 October
• Verona (Daily) from 25 October
• Wroclaw( Daily) from 25 October

Its good to see that Ryanair are also flying to North Africa, following easyJet's lead at the begining of March. Who will be the first low cost carrier to Kiev, I wonder.

Thomsonfly has released some of its Winter 2006/7 timetable for Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield. In all six routes are on sale for next Winter.
As well as the Winter sun destinations of Malaga, Alicante, Faro, Gran Canaria, Salzburg and Sur Reina Sofia in Spain there will be a weekly flight to Salzburg for Winter sports fans. The Salzburg flights start from a low £19.99 one way including taxes and charges.

Flight frequencies are:

• Malaga and Alicante, five times a week
• Sur Reina Sofia, Spain four times per week
• Faro, Portugal three times a week
• Gran Canaria twice per week
• Sur Reina Sofia, Spain four times per week
• Salzburg once per week
  

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

myair the Italian low cost airline has a seat sale on until 16h00 CET on 13 April 2006. It is selling 50,000 seats on flights to destinations such as Milan <> Bari, Brindisi, Naples, Palermo from 9.99 euros one way plus taxes and charges. Paris Orly <> Venice, Barcelona <> Venice, Milan <> Bucharest, Catania, Madrid tickets are on sale for 19.99 euros one way plus taxes and charges.
The offer applies to travel made in May 2006.

Its always a pain when you lose your mobile phone. Its even worse if you lose it and it is switched off or on silent, as you can't locate it by phoning its number and tracing the ringing sound. If you are a pilot and lose it in the cockpit while it is switched to silent you have a big problem. The phone can potentially interfere with the aircraft electronics and endanger the passengers, crew and aircraft.
This report from the BBC highlights this scenario which delayed a Thomsonfly flight to Tenerife for 4 hours.

Iceland Express the budget airline flying out of Reykjavík is offering its "Icebreaker fares", something which it does from time to time. It gives potential visitors to Iceland the chance to get there for as little as 5 GBP / 99 DKK / 9 euros, *plus taxes and charges. Taxes and charges do not exceed £30, with the London Stansted flights costing £27 in taxes and charges.

The airline is offering these cheap tickets to Reykjavík from London, Copenhagen, Alicante, Berlin, Frankfurt Hahn, Friedrichshafen, Gothenburg and Stockholm.
There was still availabilty at £9 plus taxes ad charges one way (£36 total)on the 12 April 2006 from London Stansted to Reykjavík at the time of posting. The fares only apply to one way tickets.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Norwegian Air Shuttle has been so impressed by the performance of their Oslo <> Warsaw route that they have decided to expand into the Polish market. They have just announced a new base at Warsaw from where they will fly four new routes plus the original connection to Oslo.

These being:

• Warsaw <> Alicante
• Warsaw <> Barcelona Girona
• Warsaw <> Malaga
• Warsaw <> Nice

The news routes start operating from 13 July 2006. The Warsaw <> Oslo route is already operating. Seats can be booked on the new routes now.

Virgin Express the Brussels based budget airline will be 10 years old on Monday 10 April 2006. To celebrate they are knocking 10 euros from the prices of all of their tickets from 10 am to 10 pm CET (9am to 9pm in the UK) on their birthday. The airline serves up a good selection of European destinations from its Brussels base:
Athens, Barcelona, Bari, Berlin, Catania, Faro, Geneva, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Madrid, Malaga, Milan Bergamo, Munich, Murcia, Naples, Nice, Palermo, Palma, Rome, Toulon, Valencia

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Monarch Airways who recently launched their Charter for customer care, have some good offers on at present. Flights from London to Granada or Lisbon start at a cheap £36.50, one way including taxes. London to Gibraltar starts at £41.50 and London to Faro and Menorca £46.50. Flights from Manchester to Menorca also start at £46.60 while Manchester to Menorca start at £41.50.

The extra services offered by the airline are in their own words:

"1. Free daily newspapers + refreshing hot towel service
2. No charge for checking-in baggage
3. Tasty hot & cold meals from £3.00
4. Pre-book your seat for £5 and avoid the last minute free-for-all
5. Treat yourself to one of our 48 extra legroom seats from £15
6. Get more for flying more with our loyalty scheme, Vantage Club
7. Enjoy the respectful and high quality Monarch in flight service"

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Vueling the Barcelona based low cost airline with routes throughout Spain plus connections to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan, Venice, Rome and Lisbon has a sale on. Seats are on offer from a cheap 10 euros one way, plus taxes and charges.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

From 2 May 2006 it will be possible to fly from Manchester to Vienna with Air Berlin using their transfer hub at London Stansted. This takes the hassle out of transferring baggage between flights. Looking up their website today revealed plenty of flights between Manchester and Stansted for £1 plus £18 taxes and charges (total £19 , one way). In addition to Vienna onward flights can be made to eight German cities plus Palma Mallorca , which happens to be another Air Berlin transfer hub. The non domestic flights start at £29 one way inclusive.

Thomsonfly has announced some new destinations for next Winter. They include Manchester to Marrakech, Gran Canaris, Lanzarote and Salzburg. The Salzburg flights are on sale now at the incrdedibly cheap £19.99 one way including all taxes and charges, while Marrakech is available for a paltry £34.99 one inclusive.

The Canary Islands of Tenerife, Lazarote and Gran Canaria are also on sale for £34.99 one way including taxes and charges. I looked up a return from Manchester to Marrakech in November and was quoted £66, I'm tempted.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Naples is somewhere I'd love to go to but not yet. The old saying always comes to mind when I think about Naples. SkyEurope are to operate a twice weekly service to Naples International Airport from 18 June 2006.


SkyEurope has recently changed its pricing policy so that the price that is quoted first when looking up routes is the fully inclusive price, no additional taxes and charges are added afterwards.




You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Ryanair has today added 11 new routes to its base at Liverpool Airport enough for a football team. They will start the new routes on 3 October 2006 to the following destinations:

• Aberdeen, Scotland
  
• Alghero, Italy
  
• Ancona, Italy
  
• Inverness, Scotland
  
• Kaunas, Lithuania
  
• Krakow, Poland
  
• Poznan, Poland
  
• Santander, Spain
  
• Santiago, Spain
  
• Tampere, Finland
  
• Wroclaw, Poland

The routes will operate 3 times weekly with the exception of Tampere (4 x weekly) and Aberdeen and Inverness (daily). This expansion brings the total number of routes flown by Ryanair out of Liverpool to 32. This compares with 18 by easyJet who was the first to use Liverpool as a base. It is likely that easyJet will catch up a little when their new Airbus A320 aircraft are delivered.

The new routes have gone on sale immediately at £2.49 plus taxes and charges. The fully inclusive price being a cheap £15 one way from Liverpool.

Meridiana the Italian low cost airline has added a new route from Bologna to Malta. Starting 1 June 2006, Meridiana will operate the route twice per week on Sundays and Thursdays. Fares start at 29 euros each way plus taxes and charges.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

flybe the Exeter based low cost airline has launched it new Q-Buster electronic check-in system on 101 of its European routes. What sets it apart from the other low coat airline online check-in systems, is its ability to speed up check-in at airports for passengers with hold luggage. The new system come online today. Passengers will be able to print out boarding passes 2 days before their flight until up to 2 hours before departure.
Passengers without hold luggage can print off a boarding pass at home and proceed straight to security at the airport avoiding the check-in queues.

Passengers with hold luggage will leave their bags at a dedicated fast drop area and proceed to security.
flybe is proving to be a leader in innovation among the budget airline sector. It was the first to charge extra for checked in luggage even though Ryanair had been signalling its intention to introduce the scheme beforehand.

myair one of Italy's budget airlines has a sale on at present. Sale seats can booked up until 16h00 CET (15h00 UK) on 6 April 2006 for travel between 7 April 2006 and 30 April 2006. Tickets are on sale from 9.99 euros one way plus taxes and charges. The offer doesn't end there though they are also offering 50,000 seats at 9.99 euros one way plus taxes and charges for the period 1 May to 30 June 2006. Again flights must be booked by 16h00 CET on Thursday 6 April 2006.

BA Connect the new low cost low frills service from British Airways is to add some more routes. From 2 May 2006 it will connect London City Airport with Milan Malpensa.
It will also offer two new routes from the UK to Germany. From the beginning of June 2006 it will service the Bristol International <> Dusseldorf route and the Edinburgh <> Hamburg route.

If you are due to fly to or from France, tomorrow, 4 April 2006 it would be wise to check with the airline with which you have booked. There is another general strike being staged in the country that will affect Air Traffic Control. The strike will go on until Wednesday morning. Each airline is treating it differently with Jet2.com running flights as normal but asking passengers to be prepared for delays and disruption. EasyJet with numerous French destinations has cancelled most of their flights to and from that country.

Vueling, the Spanish low cost airline will add Alicante to the routes served from its main base at Barcelona's El Prat Airport. Flights commence 2 June 2006. Vueling will offer daily flights on the route using Airbus A320 aircraft.

This may sound like a daft question but when it comes to budget airlines the final cost of a flight advertised for £1 can vary considerably. Last week I did a little research and found that there were a number of airlines offering flights from £1 each way.

Looking up one way flights from the UK, the first airport in my survey was Leeds Bradford. Here I found seats for £1 or less by Jet2, Centralwings and Ryanair:

Jet2.com > Leeds Bradford to Amsterdam £1 seat Price with taxes and charges = £9.99
Centralwings > Leeds Bradford to Warsaw £1 seat Price with taxes and charges = £20.89
Ryanair > Leeds Bradford to Dublin £0.49 seat Price with taxes and charges = £14.97

At Leeds, Jet2 had the cheapest £1 or less seats in this case but Centralwings recently averaged taxes and charges across all of their network at a £19.89.

Next up was Glasgow Prestwick with Wizz Air and Ryanair:

Ryanair > Glasgow Prestwick to Dublin £0.49 seat came to £12.97
Wizz Air > Glasgow Prestwick to £0.01 seat came to £19.99

Finally Manchester where HLX and Ryanair were offering seats below £1:

HLX > Manchester to Koln £0.01 seat with taxes and charges came to £32.72
Ryanair > Manchester to Dublin £0.49 seat with taxes and charges came to £21.97

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that for a particular airport, no airline has the same taxes and charges. Jet2.com had the lowest final price in this study with HLX added the most but costs vary between airports and the only way to know is to compare the final costs of any flight you are planning on booking.

SN Brussels and Virgin Express have been operated under the common ownership of SN Airholding for a year now. In that time both airlines have operated two distinct brands and pricing structures. The combined result led to a net profit of 12 million euros last year. In 2005 SN Brussels flew with a load factor of 61 percent against Virgin Express' load factor of 79.8 percent.

Yesterday, SN Airholding announced that the two operations would merge with one brand and one office. They have not released details of the new brand and speculation is rife at present with rumours of the Sabena name being reborn possibly as Sabena Express. In any event the Virgin Express name could not be continued into the future as Richard Branson only gave permission for the name to be used for a short period following the acquisition by SN Airholdings.

As for pricing SN Brussels is a not a low cost carrier while Virgin Express is. The announcement yesterday stated that the new merged airline will offer two distinct products. One for the low cost airline customers whose purchase depended mainly on price and one for business type passengers who were prepared to pay more for better service. All SN Airholdings need to do is to look at last year's load factors and they will see that it would be very stupid not to keep the budget airline pricing model in one of the products. It would pay them to spread the model across the whole of the new airline. Effectively making all of the airlines two classes with the spilt dependent upon the route. Mainly the low cost no frills seats for the holiday destinations and mainly premium service seats for routes between commercial centres.

Whether they keep the "S", repaint the aircraft, bring back the Sabena name are all irrelevant in my view. The business model will determine the airline's future. They may also want to look at the age of their aircraft which is currently a lot older than the leading low cost carriers such as Ryanair and EasyJet. Even Virgin Express aircraft are older than the budget airline average. Some new fuel efficient aircraft will not only reduce the environmental impact of the airline but will save them significant amounts of money as the oil price rises.