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BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
3 September, 2005: Eastern Europe, it seems, has a fancy for low cost airlines. More than a dozen budget airlines operate services connecting the countries which were under the Iron curtain during the cold war era.
Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland are all favourite hunting grounds of the budget airlines.
Even scheduled airlines are now introducing flights offering tickets with huge discounts. Along with budget airlines, web sites providing information on cheap fares have also mushroomed. Some usefull web sites provide information on such flights. It is better to check sites such as www.opodo.uk and www.cheapflights.co.uk than surfing the airline web sites for such flights and the discount rates as such offerings are done through indirect flights.
The site whichbudget.com has charter options and low-cost airlines. It also navigates you to the biggest budget airlines directory in Europe. The directory is highly usefull as it tracks 200 destinations covered by 33 airlines.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Lativia and Lithuania are still problem kids as far as low budget travel is concerned. But cheapflights.co.uk and ebookers.co.uk bring some solace. Estonia doesn’t have a low-cost airline, but Estonian Air has nine flights a week between Gatwick, the second largest airport in United Kingdom, and Tallinn, the Estonian capital, for Euro 81, which is inclusive of taxes.
Cheapflights.co.uk again comes to the travelers rescue vis-à-vis travel to Lithuania. Lithuanian Airlines and Austrian Airlines are other options.
Air Baltic operates flights to Riga, the capital city of Latvia, from Manchester, Birmingham and Heathrow. Only the flight from Heathrow is low cost – Euro 106, inclusive of taxes. Czech Airlines operates a flight from Heathrow through the Czech capital of Prague. The return ticket would cost Euro 107 through cheapflights.co.uk., while BA’s Heathrow-Riga return ticket would cost Euro 149.
Easyjet started its operations to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, from Luton in South eatern part of England, this April, with a cool offering of Euro 30.98, inclusive of taxes. cheapflights.co.uk has a Czech Airlines flight costing Euro 121. Slovenian state-run aircraft carrier Adria Airways operates daily flights from Gatwick and twice a week from Manchester, to Ljubljana,. The return ticket costs Euro 128.
For Slovakia, Sky Europe has a Euro 17 one way offer, which is exclusive of taxes, from Stansfed to Bratislava, the country’s capital. Austrian Airlines started operations from May and a return ticket from Gatwick costs Euro 72, including taxes. Cheapflights.co.uk has a Euro 116 offer on Czech Airlines.
As far as Czech Republic is concerned, Easyjet has flights from Stansted, Gatwick, Bristol, East Midlands and Newcastle to capital city of Prague. Prices start from Euro £40.98.
To Hungary, Easyjet started flights from Luton from May onwards to the capital city of Budapest. Price is Euro 31. Sky Europe has a flight originating from Stansted, one-way ticket costing Euro 17, without taxes.Opodo.co.uk offers flights to Budapest from Heathrow on Malev for Euro 78, the offer is for the whole of 2005.
Air Polonia has flights from Stansted to polish cities of Warsaw, Gdansk, Poznan and Katowice. Return ticket inclusive of taxes is Euro 81.40. Sky Europe launched flights from Stansted in June. BA has flights from Heathrow to Warsaw and from Gatwick to Krakow. Prices start from Euro 99, which is inclusive of tax.
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
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