Favorite European LCC

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

For those who have flown the European low cost carriers (you know - the ones often with the 1 eurocent or 1 penny fares - generally $20-30 after taxes and fees), which are your favorites? I have flown Ryanair, Easyjet, Sky Europe, Wizzair, and Germanwings. I have had only one late flight and one cancellation both on Sky Europe.

From my experience, I would rank them in the following order:

1) Easyjet - good route network, relatively good customer service, very lenient weight limit on cabin baggage.

2) Wizzair - relatively good customer service, decent route network

3) Sky Europe - relatively good customer service (even glitches handled well; late flight was weather related and passengers were quickly bussed to a nearby airport for flight; cancellation notification was early and they were very accomodating allowing a change to a flight to another destination at no additional fare even though that destination would otherwise have had a higher fare)

4) Germanwings - good route network, fees added to fare are higher than most LCC's

5) Ryanair - indifferent customer service, good route network but more really outlying airports than other LCC's.

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

We were very pleased with Brussels Air amd Air Berlin--don't know if they qualify as being as low cost as the others you have listed, but they were the least expensive for the routes we were using.

We, too, put Ryan air at the bottom of the list for the same reasons and Easy Jet at the top of the list for the same reasons.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

I have not yet had Air Berlin fit into my schedule, but it is one airline I would like to try, and the same goes for FlyBE and BMI Baby. Given the new air ticket taxes pushed through by Gordon Brown in the UK, I suspect that I will have a chance to try out the former before the latter two! I now actively try to route my connections to LCC's through Germany instead of the UK in response to Brown's tax.

Brussels Air, if I am not mistaken, is the surviving fragment of Sabena, isn't it?

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

I believe you are right about Sabena; Brussels Air is a partner for AA so we accumulated miles for the flight also. Air Berlin is partners with no one, but the service was good.