Cheap Flight News Europe

Jet2 has today announced that it will service the Edinburgh <> Prague route for the Summer of 2007. In the Summer months the low cost airline will provide a 5 times per week service. Seats start at £9.99 one way excluding taxes.

bmibaby's latest offer is 125,000 seats from £13.99 one way including taxes. Obviously the offer is subject to terms and conditions and credit card fees if used. Destinations included in the sale from the following UK Airports:
Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Nottingham East Midlands include Belfast, Aberdeen, Cork, Edinburgh, Jersey and Knock. A check today still revealed plenty of promotional fares available even at Weekends.

Ryanair, has today released another new route from Shannon to Lodz in Poland. The new route will receive a twice weekly service and adds to Ryanair's growing connections to Poland. The largest European no frills airline will start flying the route from 4 December 2006. Seats are available for booking now starting at 2.99 euros one way plus taxes and charges.

SkyEurope will offer the first low cost route from Dublin to Sofia on 30 October 2006. The Irish and Bulgarian capitals will be connected through the SkyEurope hub in Bratislava.
As SkyEurope is a point to point airline, passengers have to check in with their baggage again at Bratislava. The good news though is that fares start at 39 euros one way including taxes and charges.

Air Berlin the large German budget airline that recently merged with dbA has started selling seats on its new Nürnberg (Nuremberg) <> Moscow Domodedovo service. The service starts 21 December 2006 and will operate on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Seats are on sale from 99 euros one way, including taxes and charges.

Jet2 the low budget airline has some very good deals on its web site at present on departures up until 14 December 2006. The cheapest one from Manchester my local airport was a very cheap £14.99 one way inclusive of taxes and charges offer to Milan. I couldn't help noticing the Belfast to Barcelona seats going for £19.99 one way inclusive as well.

British Airways' low cost subsidiary, BA Connect has some pretty tempting deals on flights from my local airport (Manchester). I know this because they e-mail me with the offers. This is something I recommend anyone interested in finding flights at giveaway prices.

Back to the BA Connect deals. They have seats on flights from Manchester to the German cities of Hannover, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt for a very reasonable £35 one way including and charges. Even better when you consider that the flights are not likely to be using cheap slots very early in the morning or late at night and fly to main airports with good public transport links to the cities. Why not look up a flight deal and visit a German Christmas Market.

After announcing new routes from Katowice, Warsaw and Gdansk, Wizz Air is to add a new Poznan <> Stockholm Skavsta route from 28 July 2007. This made possible by the three new Airbus aircraft they are receiving next year. In addition to the new route the low cost airline will increase frequencies on its Poznan <> London flights from 5 / week to 6 / week from 14 July 2007.

The new flights are on sale now starting at 0 SEK one way (expect to pay 329 SEK taxes and charges.

SkyEurope is extending their just pay taxes and charges offer until Sunday 29 October 2007. They are also slicing £1 off the cost of taxes and charges. These very cheap flights can be booked on flights between 8 November 2006 and 24 March 2007. Terms and conditions apply check their web site.

Starting today at 14h00 CET (13:00 hours UK) Iceland Express the budget airline from the Island at the North West corner of Europe will release its Summer 2007 schedule. It will add six new routes to its European network, bringing the route total to fourteen. The new routes are:
Reykjavík <> Paris Orly, Bergen, Oslo, Billund, Eindhoven, Basel

The Iceland Express Summer timetable is valid from 15 May to 15 September 2007.

Wizz Air is to base a third Airbus A320 at its Warsaw base and serve four more routes from Summer 2007. The airline has 32 Airbus A320 aircraft each seating 180 passengers on order with options on a further 12. The fleet is planned to be over 50 strong by 2012.
The newest routes announced today are:

Warsaw <> Durham Tees Valley (UK) 3 x / week starts 28 July 2007
Warsaw <> Oslo (Norway) 3 x / week starts 28 July 2007
Warsaw <> Corfu (Greece) (Summer service only) weekly starts 29 May 2007
Warsaw - Bourgas (Bulgaria) (Summer service only) weekly starts 2 June 2007

Centavia the fledgling Serbian low cost airline is now operational. It had intended servicing the Belgrade (Beograd) <> Zagreb route but have not got permissions as yet. Their first route will be Belgrade <> Podgorica in Montenegro. It will fly there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Flights leave Belgrade 10h00 and 18h00 on these days and return at 11h30 and 19h30 the same day.

Blue Air the Romanian cheap fare airline has just announced a new route. From 15 December 2006 the Spanish resort of Malaga will be connected to the Romanian Capital every Monday and Friday. The flights will start at a very low 1 euro one way plus of course taxes. Tickets are on sale now.
The airline is expanding with previous new destinations including Brussels South Charleroi, Koln from Bucharest and Bacau <> Rome and Turin.

Over this weekend, Virgin Express has a sale on ending Midnight (CET) on Sunday 22 October 2006. They are offering 20,000 seats from their Brussels International base to all destinations at 49.99 euros one way including taxes. Seats can be booked on flights between 6 November 2006 and 17 December 2006. The low cost airline will also throw in a free cup of coffee at Brussels International with your cheap flight!

Vueling the Barcelona based budget carrier has a sale on until 24 October 2006. They are offering seats on domestic routes from 20 euros one way inclusive of airport charges and taxes. Seats to destinations outside Spain will start from 40 euros one way including taxes and charges.

Thomsonfly has just pay taxes and charges offer on its flights. Thousands of seats are being sold for £0.00 plus the taxes and fees. The deal is open until midnight (UK) Saturday 21 October 2006. The following routes have offers on them:

• Coventry, Bournemouth and Doncaster > Amsterdam
• Coventry and Doncaster > Paris
• Coventry and Doncaster > Jersey
• Luton, Bournemouth and Doncaster > Prague
• Gatwick, Manchester, Coventry, Bournemouth and Doncaster > Salzburg
  

Wizz Air has announced another 2 routes out of Poland today. Following an expansion at Katowice, Gdansk gets two new routes. The first being a 4 x / week service between Gdansk and Doncaster Sheffield Airport which is due to start up on15 July 2007. The second is a 3 x / week service to Malmö, which starts operating on 14 July 2007.

Flybe has received the title “Best Low Fares Airline” in Northern Ireland again this year having first been voted the top budget carrier in the province in 2005. Stephen Hobday, Head of Sales, Flybe, said, “ Having won the award last year which in itself was a great tribute, winning it again for the second consecutive year was a fantastic achievement given the evident strength of the competition here in Northern Ireland particularly throughout the past 12 months."
The Northern Ireland Travel News award is made on votes from members of the travel trade. Flybe is the biggest operator at Belfast City Airport with direct flights to destinations all over the United Kingdom.

Air Southwest has today announced that its Summer 2007 route line up will be available for sale from 1 November 2006. It will allow flights to be booked right up until the end of October 2007.

Today, Ryanair added a further two cheap flight destinations to Dublin Airport's growing list. The new routes will start flying February 2007 and start at 24 euros one way including taxes..
They are:
Dublin <> Warsaw Starting 12 Feb 07
Dubllin <> Stockholm (Vasteras) Starting 12 Feb 07

The Spanish airline Clickair are opened 12 new routes in Spain and Europe beginning from the 1st of January 2007 and as an introductory offer to these new flights up until March 2007 all flights are 20 euros one-way including taxes and charges. Also Clickairs existing routes will have more flights running like Barcelona and Malaga which will have 5 flights daily, also the Barcelona <> Lisbon route will have twice and many flights as before.
From the 1st of February there will be new flights from Catalan to Prague and Berlin running once a day, also from Seville and Valencia <> London Heathrow, Valencia <> Milan-Malpensa.
From the 1st of March Barcelona to Amsterdam and Frankfurt running twice a day and Barcelona to Dublin and Basil flying once a day.

Iceland Express is offering 20,000 seats flying to and from Iceland for £69 (99 Euros) one-way including taxes and charges. You can fly between 18 October to 30 November 2006. Also for families, children accompanied by an adult can fly for £55 (79 Euros).
The offer ends Thursday 1400 CET.

FlyMe the Swedish low fare airline is adding some new routes in March 2007. They include:
Gothenburg (Landvetter) <> Bologna
Gothenburg (Landvetter) <> Athens
Malmö (Sturup) <> Nice
Malmö (Sturup) <> Alicante
Malmö (Sturup) <> Bologna
Stockholm (Arlanda) <> Rome
Stockholm (Arlanda) <> Luleå
Stockholm (Arlanda) <> Nice
Stockholm (Arlanda) <> Alicante

HLX the TUI owned German budget airline has recently announced a number of new routes for Summer 2007. They start at the company's 19.99 euro one way inclusive taxi fare price. That's 1 euro cent plus taxes and fees. The latest routes are out of Germany as is to be expected and are:

• Munich <> Rimini
• Munster <> Venice
• Hanover <> Valencia
• Stuttgart <> Rimini

The lastest route offering from Jet2.com is Leeds Bradford <> Toulouse. The new service will begin flying on Saturday 19 May 2007 . Jet2 will provide a weekly service every Saturday. Seats are available for sale now starting at £21.99 including taxes.

Germanwings has a sale on starting at 17h00 CET (16:00 UK) tonight 12
October 2006. 200,000 seats on flights of this no frills airline will be
offered starting at 0 euros plus taxes and charges. A selection of seats
at these prices are available across all routes over the booking period
which is open until Midnight CET on Sunday 15 October 2006. Flights at
these rates are available between 1 November 2006 and 31 January 2007.

Virgin Express has a pre Christmas offer on tonight, but as usual with
this low cost Belgian Airline you will need to be quick. If you want to
catch a Virgin Express Offer it is best to sign up for their e-mails as
their sale's are only on for 6 hours. Tonight, Thursday October 12
between 18h00 CET (17:00 UK) and 24h00 CET (23:00 UK), they are offering
all of their European destinations from 49.99 euros one way including
all taxes. Seats can be booked on flights departing between 6 November
2006 and 17 December 2006

From 18 December 2006, Air Berlin the German low cost carrier will operate a service between Berlin Tegel and Saint Petersburgh every Monday and Friday. The airline has recently had approval for its take over of domestic low cost carrier dba.

SkyEurope has a very attractive deal on at present. Up until Sunday15 October 2006 seats on flights from
London > Bratislava
London > Krakow
London > Poprad/Tatras
Birmingham > Krakow
Manchester > Krakow
Manchester > Salzburg
Manchester > Bratislava
are on sale from £7 one way including taxes. While:
Dublin > Bratislava
Dublin > Krakow
are on sale from 9 euros including taxes. Flights at these rates are available between 1 November 2006 and 14 December 2006 and 9 January 2007 and 24 March 2007.

Ryanair today announced that Madrid is to become its eighteenth base. It will operate three aircraft out of Madrid Barajas with fourteen new routes. Ryanair will commence flights from the Spanish Capital on 22 November 2006. The full line up of the new routes is:


Madrid <> Dublin (Daily) starts 10 December 2006
Madrid <> Eindhoven (Daily) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Faro (Daily) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Porto (Daily) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Marseille (Daily) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Paris (Daily) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Billund (4/week) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Brussels Charleroi (4/week) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> East Midlands (4/week) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Oslo Torp (4/week) starts 22 November 2006
Madrid <> Bournemouth (3/week) starts 23 November 2006
Madrid <> Gothenburg (3/week) starts 23 November 2006
Madrid <> Malmo (3/week) starts 23 November 2006
Madrid <> Shannon (3/week) starts 22 November 2006

Wizz Air the Central / Eastern European low fares airline is to add a further six routes out of its Katowice base in Poland. Katowice is an industrial city but the flights connect to Krakow via a convenient coach service.
The new routes are:Katowice <> Belfast from 29 may 2007
Katowice <> Eindhoven from 29 May 2007
Katowice <> Bourgas from 2 June 2007
Katowice <> Crete/ Heraklion from 2 June 2007
Katowice <> Bournemouth from 14 July 2007
Katowice <>Coventry from 28 July 2007

It is the season of travel awards at present. This time it is the turn of the Guardian to recognise the Travel Companies who have impressed them. The award for Best Short Haul Airline was lifted by Jet2 at the Guardian, Observer and Guardian Unlimited Travel Awards ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa.

Starting tomorrow Monday 10 October 2006 at 14h00 CET / 13:00hrs UK, Iceland Express has a sale on with 2,990 seats available from GBP 25, EUR 35, DKK 255, SEK 315, ISK 2,990, one-way, excl. taxes and charges. The seats are available on flights from 10 October 2006 to 15 December 2006.
They also have some "Icebreaker" promotional fares available at present with flights from London Stansted to Reykjavik available at £9 one way excluding taxes and fees. The fares can be booked on three dates Saturday 11 November 2006, Saturday 18 November 2006 and Monday 27 November 2006.

The Ryanair bid for Aer Lingus poses a number of questions. They say they are serious and of course bids cost money. My view is that it could be the Ryanair flair for publicity coming to the fore again. Why do I hold this view?
Well to be able to take over Aer Lingus they will need to get over 50% of the shares in Aer Lingus. The Irish government with 28% if the shares have said they will not be selling. Aer Lingus pilots are believed to hold another 15% of the shares and are not likely to sell.
There will also be a significant proportion of investors that bought Aer Lingus shares in the flotation who want Aer Lingus to prosper as a company in its own right. If they wanted to invest in a competing airline they would have bought Ryanair shares.
Furthermore the takeover does not follow the low cost airline model that Ryanair has followed with great financial success. The business plan for Aer Lingus is quite different from Ryanair especially with respect to the long haul routes, although Aer Lingus has been cutting fares on its short haul routes with some fares as competitive as Ryanair and considering Aer Lingus flies to the main airports at peak times often represent better value than their no frills competitor.
Finally there appears to be complaints from Ryanair investors of the belief that an Aer Lingus acquisition would drag down the company's profits and are upset that they were not consulted before the bid was launched.
So getting back to my point, Ryanair has amassed a massive amount of publicity once again. This time it has cost them, but I would not be surprised if they withdrew their bid and cashed in their shares. They would most likely make a decent profit on the trade as the shares are trading at a significant premium now. They should easily cover their bid costs. They would then walk away with a higher profile in Europe now that the financial institutions and public are aware of how successful Ryanair is.

XL.com sell off lots of cheap flights in the Autumn and Spring and have a good "Find-A-Deal" page on their site. The cheapest available a few minutes ago was a £61 return from London Gatwick to Malaga departing on 8 October 2006 October and returning 7 days later. The price includes all taxes, fees and surcharges even credit / debit card fees. They currently have a great selection of flights from London Gatwick, Birmingham, Nottingham East Midlands, Cardiff, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle and Belfast. Destinations embrace the Mediteranean, Canary Islands and North Africa.

Monarch Airlines have this week been recognised as the 'Airline of the Year - Leisure'. The award is from the Travel trade Gazette and was made at the a ceremony in Old Billingsgate, London on 4 October 2006. They faced stiff competition from Virgin Atlantic, Thomas Cook, BMI and First Choice but won out due to their combination of cheap fares and "frills" such as free newspapers, meals etc.
Monarch's flights start at £33 one way including all taxes.

Wizz Air the cheap fares airline from Central and Eastern Europe is selling 200,000 seats on flights for just the cost of the airport fees and taxes which come to about £20 one way. The offer runs until 13 October 2006 for flights taken between 18 October 2006 and 24 March 2007.

Flyglobespan has just announced its Summer 2007 routes from Durham Tees Valley Airport. They are:

Durham Tees Valley <> Malaga starts 30 March 2007
Durham Tees Valley <> Palma starts 30 March 2007
Durham Tees Valley <> Alicante starts 1 April 2007
Durham Tees Valley <>Faro starts 1 April 2007

Flights start at £39.99 one way including taxes and airport fees. The routes must be welcomed by the airport following the decision by bmibaby to cease operating from there.

Jet2.com is adding another six destinations to its Belfast line up. They start at only £9.99 Check out our Low Fare Finder to get cheap flights to Ibiza, Majorca, Malaga, Milan, Pisa & Toulouse from only £9.99 excluding taxes and fees. The fares to Milan start at £9.99 one way and come to £21.99 including taxes and airport charges.

My Way Airlines (MyAir) the Italian no frills airline have added a further two routes to their network. From 19 December 2006 they will connect Catania, Italy and Bucharest, Romania every Tuesday and Saturday. Then on 15 February 2007 they will add Bologna, Italy <> Sofia, Bulgaria operating a service every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The seats are being sold for these routes right now for 0.01 euros plus taxes and charges one way.

FlyBE the Exeter based low cost airline has just been awarded a Superbrand 2007 accolade. The airline has been recognised as a leading business to business brand by the Business Superbrands Council. It will join brands as familiar as BT, O2, Financial Times and IBM in getting an award.

Possibly in celebration or more likely because they want to please their customers they are having a sale of 1 million seats starting at £19.99 one way including taxes and airport charges. Look up www.flybe.com for more details.

You will be glad to hear that's 30% off the ticket price not a narrower seat. The bmibaby offer is on until midnight (UK) Wednesday 11 October 2006. It applies to flights made from November until the end of the current booking period. The discount is not that easy to work out as some seats are available for free at current prices such as Birmingham > Amsterdam. The taxes and charges bring this fare up to £13.95. bmibaby claim their seats start at £13.99 including taxes and charges but this leg is slightly cheaper. A quick browse revealed some excellent deals available.

flyglobespan has today announced the following routes to the sun from Aberdeen:

Aberdeen <> Barcelona starts 29 April 2007 at £39.99 one way inclusive
Aberdeen <> Murcia starts 29 April 2007 at £49.99 one way inclusive
Aberdeen <> Alicante starts 27 April 2007 at £49.99 one way inclusive
Aberdeen <> Palma starts 27 April 2007 at £49.99 one way inclusive
Aberdeen <> Paphos starts 1 May 2007 at £49.99 one way inclusive
Aberdeen <> Faro starts 28 April 2007 at £49.99 one way inclusive
Aberdeen <> Tenerife operates all year from £59.99

The inclusive fares are one way and include airport charges and taxes.

Thomsonfly the low fares airline from the British part of TUI is offering flights to Salzburg from £15 one way this Winter. The fares include taxes and airport charges. Salzburg is located within easy reach of 60 ski resorts. There are in all 100,000 seats offered at promotional prices with Grenoble also on offer from £2o inclusive. You will need to be quick as the offer is only on until midnight on Sunday 8 October 2006.

Ryanair is now expanding at an incredible pace, along with a bid for Aer Lingus it announced ten new routes from Nottingham East Midlands Airport today. The routes new destinations from the airport are:

Alghero (Sardinia) starts 19 February 2007
Bratislava starts 26 February 2007
Knock starts 27 February 2007
Milan starts 12 February 2007
Valencia starts 19 February 2007
Granada starts 20 February 2007
Inverness starts 26 February 2007
Krakow starts 20 February 2007
Pisa starts 13 February 2007
Santiago 27 February 2007

Vueling the Barcelona based budget airline is selling 100,000 seats on Spanish domestic flights from 25 euros one way all inclusive, with Europe wide flights at 45 euros one way including taxes and charges. The offer is available staring today up until 10 October 2006, for flights taken between October 2006 and March 2007.

Aer Lingus was privatised and shares have been trading since Monday. In this short time Ryanair has built up a 16% holding in the company and today made a cash offer worth 1.48 billion euros. Ryanair if successful plan to use its excellent buying position with Boeing to upgrade the Aer Lingus fleet at preferential rates and to make cost savings allowing the cost of seats to come down on the Irish flag carrying airline. The Irish government is not supporting the takeover stating that it will not sell its 28% in Aer Lingus. The pilot's trade unions are also expressing concern but Ryanair have made statements to allay fears.
Ryanair has promised to retain the Aer Lingus brand and to keep its slots at Heathrow as well as to reduce the cost of Aer Lingus's seats over the coming years.

SkyEurope the Central and Eastern European low fares airline has 250,000 seats available for free. The only cost will be the taxes and charges. The seats are available on flights between 24 October 2006 and 14 December 2006 as well as 9 January t0 24 March 2007. The flights on offer are subject to availability and apply to Internet bookings only.

Ryanair is extending its latest promotion of seats for £10 one way including taxes and airport charges. Seats can now be booked up until midnight on Thursday 5 October 2006. Destinations available from London Stansted include:
Limoges,Gothenburg, Salzburg, Kerry, Poznan, Ancona, Carcassonne, Oslo (Torp), Derry, Trieste, Malmo (Sturup, Aarhus, Berlin (Schonefeld, Parma, Klagenfurt, Tampere, Girona (Barcelona, Esbjerg, Balaton, Perpignan, Bergerac, Lamezia, Rzeszów,
Lodz, Pescara, Bari, Brno, Krakow, Wroclaw, Bydgoszcz, Bratislava (Vienna), Santiago De Compostela, Szczecin, Pula (Istria), Gdañsk, Stockholm (Skavsta), Valencia, Haugesund, Brindisi, Knock-Ireland West, Santander, Rome (Ciampino), Zaragoza (Pyrenees), Valladolid, Nantes (Brittany), Turin

The list goes on. Surely you must be tempted.

Jet2.com is selling seats on flights to Amsterdam starting at 99 pence one way excluding taxes and charges. There was availability when I looked up their low fare Finder. The total including taxes and airport charges was £12.99 one way. They also have flights from Newcastle and Leeds Bradford to Amsterdam for 99 pence plus taxes and charges.
Also on offer from Blackpool were tickets to Prague for £7.99 one way plus taxes and charges, adding up to a total of £19.99 one way including taxes and airport charges.

From 24 April 2007, easyJet will connect Belfast International Airport and Krakow in Poland with a thrice weekly service. Prices will start at £18.99 one way including taxes and charges. In launching the service Paul Cable, easyJet's Northern Ireland marketing manager, said:"easyJet is delighted to be announcing another new and exciting route from Belfast International to Krakow. Northern Ireland is a very important market to easyJet and we are looking forward to announcing more new routes and increased frequencies for Summer 2007 in the coming weeks."
Seats for the new route go on sale in November 2006.

A campaign has just been launched by the European Regional Airlines Association (ERA) calling for easy to understand pricing on airline websites. ERA believes that passengers should be able to get the full cost of their seat without having to add taxes and charges usually by pursuing a booking almost up to the payment page. It is calling for all airline to include the all inclusive price on the website with at least equal prominence to prices before taxes and charges. It is also calling for credit and debit card booking fees to be displayed.
Airlines that meet the conditions laid down by ERA will be allowed to display a "Plain fares" logo.

Ryanair has committed to buy a further 32 Boeing 737-900 Next Generation aircraft. They will be delivered between September 2008 and June 2009 and allow the airline to maintain its 10% plus growth per year. This will lead to a doubling of passengers carried from 42 million per year to 84 million passengers per year by 2012 on current projections. On the plus side they will be operating a fuel efficient fleet but of course flying more aircraft. However by 20012 I'd expect a good proportion of the passengers flying Ryanair to come from its failed competitors as Ryanair continues sustain a growth in profits, this year up by 11%. Ryanair has managed to decrease its carbon dioxide emissions per seat and increase fuel efficiency significantly as it has upgraded its fleet. As Michael O'Leary Ryanair's CEO said on announcing the firm order: "These aircraft are equipped with all of the latest technological advances in engine type, aerodynamics and blended winglets which ensure maximum fuel efficiency and have allowed Ryanair to reduce fuel burn by 45% and cut CO2 emissions by 50% per seat."