Budget Airline Fares

Budget airline fares are never steady. In fact, the price goes up a little almost everyday as the plane fills up. If a school group of about 30 kids purchases tickets at once, the fare could easily double overnight. Booking at the last minute it's not usual to see fares even higher than can be found at the national carriers. With the discount carriers it's always best to book sooner rather than later.

Thanks for the reply! I've been bugging my boyfriend about booking these flights for a couple of weeks, hopefully this info will help me make him budge :)

I read on an AP byline that Ryanair has been threatened with huge fines by the EU for not providing compensation to its passengers on its flights that it cancelled because of the volcano. Such compensation is required of European airlines by the EU. Ryanair says they will pay up but has appealed the fine to the EU authorities. I just took them off my list.

Steve, I have used skyscanner, but I have also heard enough about Ryanair to cross them off my list (don't forget refusing to sell water to passengers stranded on one of their planes!). easyJet, on the other hand, has favourable reviews from my friends and most posters here.

Thanks for the suggestion on BA. However, the fares they quoted are still almost twice the price of easyJet. BA quotes 77EUR/person on average, whereas easyJet is 35EUR with max 10EUR in booking fees/visa transaction. Both do not include the foreign transaction fees, so that's moot.

We're both young travelers with small carry-on bags, and don't care about where on the plane we sit :)

Also look at BA advance fares, quite often when you have added all the extras the budget airlines add on to the basic fare, there can be very little difference in the price. Both Easyjet and Ryanair do not allocate seats so you have to find a seat when you board, probably not such a problem for a short flight. Also you will find more generous hold and carry on luggage allowances on the non budget airlines.

One thing to remember is that fares go up and fares go down, but the number of available seats ALWAYS goes down.

Once your travel dates are set, it's best to book right away. I've traveled for years, and I've found that rarely do fares go down enough to make waiting worthwhile. In fact, they usually go up.

Just one traveler's opinion!

Most of the budget airlines use a similar fare system (buy early for lowest fare) to Southwest Airlines here in the US. Be aware however that there are a lot of tack-on fees to the initial pricing.