Flying Around Europe / In Europa herumfliegen

We’re on the move again today, heading off to Prague for New Year’s. Our trip to Prague is a result of amazing airfares in Europe. There are all kinds of small airlines you have never heard of here, and with them, you can find incredibly cheap seats to all kinds of destinations. When we flew to England we flew from Salzburg to Manchester with Thomsonfly. Never heard of it? It’s a major British holiday provider, and our tickets (one way) cost us somewhere around $200. That’s total, not per person. When I looked at flying directly back to Salzburg, I found that the weekend of the 27th/28th of December was a popular one and prices were sky high. Instead of paying a lot of money to go home, I started looking at alternate plans and found flights to Prague from Leeds-Bradford (not far from Manchester) with Jet2.com for only 10 Pounds ($14.00) person! Once you add taxes and fees and seat reservations and luggage costs, it added up to another $200 of so for all of us, but was still less than just one of us flying back to Salzburg that weekend.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous about what we might find with both of our cheap flights. Would there really be seats in the plane? Would there be oxygen? And would we ever see our luggage again? But, I was really impressed with both airlines, and would definitely fly both again. Checking in was efficient with helpful personnel. The airplanes were clean and spacious, with more legroom than you find on any major American airline. Both flights boarded quickly, and we departed and landed early on both flights. There are so many of these little ‘super deal’ airlines in Europe that seem to be making a go of it, and doing their business very well, while US Airways and United and all the others struggle to make ends meet. I wonder what it is about airlines in America that make them so inefficient and always falling in and out of bankruptcy? Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned here.