Discount airlines in Europe Attractions & Activities - The Best Holiday Destinations for 2020
Boarding at Ryanair, no assigned seats
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Europe has a number of low cost airlines, the largest and most established being easyJet , RyanAir , germanwings and Air Berlin . These airlines have stirred up air travel within Europe by dramatically cutting fares.
The European Open-Skies Treaty of 1992 blew the lid off the system in place before, where national government would restrict access to their airspace to expensive 'flag-carriers', such as British Airways or Lufthansa . This enabled airlines to fly anywhere they wished in the European Union without government approval.
Ryanair was the first airline in Europe to try this model, and now has many followers offering low fares across the continent. These are boom times for cheap air travel in the European Union, with fares on some routes as low as €10 (£7, US$12) one-way including tax (though average fares for international flights are around €80 one-way).
Do not overlook other European airlines: for example depending on the your destination, dates and time budget the normally expensive Swiss airline can be cheaper than a so-called discount airline, when all costs and times are included from source to destination. Another example is OLT, which offers business flights, can be cheaper than any alternative airline for some legs.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Discount airlines in Europe
