Cheap flights airlines, also referred to as no frills or low fares airlines are airlines that provide cheapest flights travel prices by selling most of their on board services such as cargo carrying, meals and seats booking. The low cost airlines should not be confused with regular airlines that providing seasonal discounted fares. Unlike the regular airlines, these airlines continually provide such low fares and keeping their costs low.
History of Cheap Flights Airlines
Cheap flight airlines were started in 1971 by an American airlines called Southwest Airlines. It spread to Europe and the airlines are quickly gaining root among many travelers. In 1994, 3 million travelers chose to use the cheap flights and the statistics sky rocketed in the next year. 1995 saw over 17.5 million travelers move from the regular airlines to the low fare flights airlines in a bid to get the cheapest flights. This trend has continued to characterize the airline industry. Many main-stream airlines have either shifted to the cheap fare flights business or have opened franchises to catch this growing demand. Case in point is British Airways that founded their cheap flights airline subsidiary called Go. KLM also started a franchise for low fare flights called Buzz. However, Buzz was bought by Ryanair and Go by easyJet after the former owning airlines recorded losses from these cheap flights subsidiaries. Today, easyJet and Ryanair are the most successful low rates flights companies operating in Europe. With the economic recession and the hard hit on the airlines industry, analysts project that the trend on cheap fare flights will continue to grow into the future. They project that low rates flights will also take the long distant routes which are currently predominated by the large regular airlines.
How the Cheap Flights Manage Their Costs
The cheap flights airlines are able to have the cheapest flights for various reasons. These airlines will mainly land on airports that are smaller and have cheaper costs for landing and parking. They also sell their tickets directly without reliance on third party agents and thereby reducing on commission costs. The planes also minimize on their on-board staff by having no meals or cash meals served. No meals means that less cleaning costs and food storage costs. The planes will usually have little or no entertainment and thereby reducing on related costs. Since they usually have the cheapest flights, the flights are mostly full and they minimize on their loading and offloading time at airports. These planes have one travel class to ease on administration costs and the companies use new planes to reduce on maintenance costs.
How to get the cheapest flights for your travel
Even with the cheap flights airlines, you can mange your travel to time the cheapest offers and therefore reduce further on your travel costs. Booking way in advance, at least two weeks prior to your travel will in most cases reduce on your fare charges. Airlines will generally increase on their fares as the date of travel nears. Since there are no middlemen with these airlines, all you need to do is go to the airlines website and book for the air ticket and pay via credit card. You can also book and pay by calling their call centers. The cheapest flights are usually on weekdays between Monday and Thursday. Weekend fares are usually higher as the demand is also high. You should also try and book the very early morning and late in the night flights as these flights have less demand and therefore lower fares. When booking and comparing prices, you should keep in mind the taxes levied on the tickets. Some cheap flights airlines will have the fares indicated inclusive of taxes while others exclude taxes.