Make the Most of Budget Airlines

Imagine if there weren’t cheap flights to places all around the world like there are today.

Whereas our grandparents might have never even gone abroad, today we can jump on a plane just for a couple of days and not even really think about the costs.

Since we started the new millennium, air travel around Europe has – to use a pun – taken off! Although the economic crisis may have given the industry a bit of a knock, you still see plenty of people going off somewhere interesting for the weekend – especially people who don’t have the commitment of children to tie them to only having the school holidays as their escape time.

With companies like Jet2, Flybe and Ryanair you can get very cheap flights to cities like Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and Budapest just as easily as you can fly to beach resorts like the Canaries, Majorca, Ibiza and the Greek islands. Deregulation has made all these cheap flights possible as airlines can now fly to and from other airports apart from their hubs, which didn’t use to be possible.

It’s not quite as cheap to fly long haul yet, but if you book well in advance there are still good deals to be found.

The only downside for many people in taking advantage of these cheap flights is the sheer effort of getting through the airports – due to increased security measures following 9/11. When you’re queuing for an hour or more just to go through the security checks, it can actually put you off flying unless you’re going for a decent length of time.

Hopefully, as the airports streamline their security checks and everyone gets more used to be being ready for things such as emptying your pockets, taking off your belt and un-tieing your shoes, we will see less time being spent on checks and it’ll get easier to get through the airports again.