Cheap airlines are a false economy

You learn a lot whilst traveling, things you almost have to do and experience before you understand not to do that again. Some things take a couple of experiences to ram it home.

Cheap flights is one such thing…

The promise of traveling huge distances for very little money is most traveller’s dream and the airlines know this. It appears to be a pretty unregulated industry in some ways too. The advertised price is almost never the final price when the addition of luggage, taxes, to/from the airport and so-on. When these hidden extras are taken into consideration, the final price is often a lot higher but you’re already emotionally attached to that fundamental idea – it’s cheap and quick.

Here’s a couple of examples we’ve encountered on our trip so far…

Example 1 – we had booked a flight from Stuttgart to Bucharest with a cheap airline. In fact, we had travelled from Munich to Stuttgart (30€ each by train) to get a much cheaper price than what we could obtain flying out of Munich. Not only that, we lost hours in transit time between the 2 cities, our hotel in Stuttgart was far more expensive than Munich (extra 100€/night) along with incidentals such as more public transport costs and time/effort of moving hotels etc.

To top it off, our flight was cancelled unbeknownst to us, a reasonably common problem with the cheaper brigade, at which point we had to book flights twice as much as what our originals were and we had another night in the hotel meaning more money and more lost time. In retrospect, we should have simply paid the higher price with a reputable company from Munich. The good outcome was we got to see parts of another city, but probably at the cost of seeing Munich better and it came with a lot more hassle. Did we learn? Read on…

Budget airlines are cheap for a reason. Remember, they’re a business just like their more expensive counterparts and often have similar costs, so they cut corners or don’t include bits passengers often need/use and charge significant extras.

Another key aspect is which airport they use. In Adelaide, we have the single airport where full-price and budget airlines co-exist. This is certainly not always the case, especially in larger cities around the world. Budget airlines will often rent space in older airports or smaller / less used ones which typically are either further away or harder to get to. This leads me to our second example…

Example 2 – we could have caught a 7hr train from Rotterdam to Berlin, but we didn’t want to “waste” a day traveling and the cost of 230€ each was pretty steep. An idea of, “Dusselforf has a huge airport, it’s only 3hrs away and flights are cheap from
there” sounded like a good idea, however we hadn’t learnt our lesson…

Flights from Dusselforf to Berlin – 1h10 and 44€ each. Bargain and so quick! But is it…

* Rotterdam to Dusseldorf – 40€ each plus 4hrs train journey
* a night’s accommodation in Dusseldorf – 72€
* airline flies out of a distant airport – 1hr train ride, 13€ each plus 10min taxi ride of 16€
* plane fares:
* 89.98 EUR Total Fare for 2 tickets
* 57.34 EUR Taxes, Fees & Charges
* 11.90 EUR Passenger Fee: Web Check in
* 59.50 EUR Passenger Fee: Checked Bag(s)
* 1.19 EUR Passenger Fee: WDESMS
* 11.90 EUR Passenger Fee: German Domestic Administration Fee

Flight total paid – 231.81 EUR. A far cry from the 88€ advertised! But still, it’s only half what our train ticket would be. Or is it?

Add on 182€ for the extras and we’re less than 50€ than if we’d simply gone from Rotterdam but we’ve had a heap more hassle, lost nearly 1.5 days in travel and other downtime and flying still sux in comparison to train travel.

Yes there are times it makes sense. If you’re a light traveller not needing to check luggage or you can get taken to the airport or money is tighter than time – it can make sense.

In our eyes, it’s simply not worth it. Our advice – don’t get sucked in by the bait; they’re ready to reel you in and it’s hard to get off the hook.