Any help on cheap flights?

[Leekbrookgull]

Ok,it is not a BHA or footy point,but can any NSC user please inform me why the likes of Monarch/Bmi dont fly to the likes of Greece/Malta/Cyprus etc. All low-cost flights are to western/southern europe.Is this our good friends the EEC,tieing the airlines down,or airport fees? Any help or advice,please.

 

[B.M.F]

I believe the Greeks have their own low cost airways and do not like to be outpriced by foriegn travel. Can't for the life of me think of the name of the company though.

 

[LANGDON SEAGULL]

Helios is the name of the low cost Cypriot airline. I have friends in Cyprus and costs me a fortune to get out there in the summer. Usually go Air Austria via Vienna

 

[Mr C]

I want cheap flights to America.

 

[Leekbrookgull]

Helios? is that the one that went down??

 

[dougdeep]

Helios was the Greek sun god, I believe it is also the word for 1,000.

 

[Mr C]

Helios? is that the one that went down??

Yes

 

[swindonseagull]

http://www.skyscanner.net/

covers all the low cost airlines in europe

try the map facility

 

[mindyjaja]

I want cheap flights to America.

BA have got a decent sale on at the moment which ends at midnight on Tuesday.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_gb

 

[Rougvie]

There is a relatively cheap airline that serves Malta, is called BritishJet.com and they have a pretty much nightly flight from Gatwick to Malta.

Other than that Air Malta are doing VERY cheap deals out of most UK airports right now because this new lot are chipping away at their until now unchallenged business.

The Lo-co's will not touch Cyprus and Malta because its just that bit far for their extremely tight margins to work on aircraft such as the Airbus 319 and the 737, their profit margins are smaller on the 3 hour plus it reduces utilisation, the business models are very much based round flights of 2.5 hour or less durations, with a few exeptions (Athens etc).

The union situation in these places also makes it VERY difficult to cut deals on Handling and the other bits and pieces that the Lo-co'c expect to get pretty much for free, and on top of that you can forget an aircraft EVER getting turned around in an hour in any of these places.

 

[bhaexpress]

Monarch do fly to Greece but they are a charter airline not a scheduled airline (Monarch are part of Cosmos). BMI don't fly there because they don't have the route license.

Cheapest flights tend to be Ebookers, I know they are for Trans Atlantic. Expedia are close behind them though.