There is no doubt that the arrival of the so called "low cost airlines" have changed the face of short haul air travel & although it pains me to say it, as they have taken away a lot of my revenue, for the better in my opinion.
I have been running my own travel business for over 12 years now, mainly dealing in discounted airfares. It used to be the case that if you wanted low cost airfares that you had to stay a minimum amount of time & especially a Saturday night. This was impossible for people who only wanted to travel for short periods, wanted to travel during the week or simply wanted one way travel. Now you can get low airfares staying as long or as little as you want, travel when you want & even for one way travel, this was unheard of only a few short years ago.
The low cost airlines & their low airfares have had a huge impact on air travel & peoples flying & holiday habits with more & more people now taking lots of short breaks instead of the traditional 2 weeks in the sun during the summer. As a result of this impact the long established Airlines are following suit in offering low airfares for travel for any durations & one ways.
We have all probably heard of or seen the ridiculously low airfares of ?1 (or less ! ) plus tax to fly to many destinations across europe, but how do you get these low airfares ? Well I will tell you (although I'm not sure why ? )
First & foremost you must plan well in advance, 6-9 months or even longer if possible. The low cost airlines will generally have very low airfares for their lead in prices to grab your attention & get the headlines. However they will only have a handfull of seats available at the low airfares, once these seats are sold you will have to pay more. Maybe the next fare level will only be ?10 more so still a low airfare but again once a small amount of seats have been sold at this price the fare will rise again. This will keep happening until the fares are most definately not low airfares so it pays to book in advance. Lets face it at ?1 or thereabouts plus tax if your plans change & you can't travel you are not loosing much are you ?
Next, get yourself on the e mail list of the low cost airlines such as Easyjet, Ryanair, Jet2, Bmibaby etc. They will then e mail you when their flights are about to go on sale for up coming seasons. This should enable you to get first pick of the low airafres when you want to travel. Familiarise yourself with the low cost Airlines that fly from your local airport & get on their e mail lists. You will find this information on your local Airports website.
If you are not sure where you want to go then try websites such as skyscanner where you will find a facility to find out where the low cost Airlines fly to from your local Airport including the low airfares. You may find yourself travelling to places you would not have thought of simply because you cannot pass up the low airfares to that destination.
Try travelling during the week or be flexible in when you want to travel, play around with dates on your low airfare searches & you may be pleasantly surprised at how much you can save.
New destinations are often added by the low cost Airlines & to promote these destinations they are generally offered with low air airfares. again this is where you will benefit from being on the e mail lists of the low cost Airlines as you will be the first to find out when new desinations are being launched.
Follow the above advice & you will find yourself clocking up those air miles travelling to well known as well as not so well known destinations all over Europe & in taking advantage of the low airfares & often cheap prices across Europe having a few days away for the cost of a good night out in the UK.
