Alternatives for Ryan Air.

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grapefruitmoon

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I would like to have a big trip in Europe, and want to save as much as possible. However, I really had bad experience with Ryan Air.
So far I got Norwegian Air for ticket from Oslo to Santorini (50 EUR) and stuck at some other flights.
I tried SAS and Berlin Airlines.

Is there more option out there?
 
I prefer EasyJet to RyanAir myself, but their flights to Santorini tend to start in June/July... During the summer months quite a few more airlines fly to Santorini...

Or are you talking about getting around Europe as whole??
 
Depending on how many trips you're doing you could look at a Eurail pass. Obviously the train is slower but you can start and finish your Journeys in the cities and usually arrive there 10 mins before the train leaves without any need for customs or that sort of stuff.
 
Alternative to Ryan Air: Anyone.................sorry couldn't help myself. :mrgreen:


Matt
PS, I like the train answer
 
Skyscanner doesn't necessarilly show every LCC in its search engine (I dont think).

Have a look at the wikipedia page of the airport you are departing from or flying to and see which carriers fly that route. Then go to the website of those carriers and check prices. I would not take a connecting flight with a 2 hour layover in somewhere you dont want to be just to save 10 Euro.

IME I would avoid Vueling but highly recommend Air Europa and Pegasus.
 
Aegean Airlines generally have cheap airfares to many European destinations.
 
Depending on how many trips you're doing you could look at a Eurail pass. Obviously the train is slower but you can start and finish your Journeys in the cities and usually arrive there 10 mins before the train leaves without any need for customs or that sort of stuff.

Thankx a lot. I bought a Global Pass for 1 month and it's on the way now.
However, since I will spend 3 month here, eurail is not really ultimate choice, and it makes you stay less in one city. I'm exploring the places, and would go to Iceland, Tallinn, Greece and Spain so if I can find a cheap ticket for 3-4 hours of flight then why not?
 
and thank you so much for a lot of recommendations. I often use cheaptickets,cheapOair, skyscanner and other search engines but those you guys mentioned never came out (srsly!!!) :___;
 
The Lufthansa family of airlines (Austria, Swiss, Brussels, Lufthansa) often have reasonable fares if you a "triangulating" your trip or doing "open jaws", but it does depends on routing/cities. So to go from A to B to C (with stopover in B) may well be the same as travelling from A to B return (and much much cheaper than buying one way fares). Likewise booking A to B, and C to A can be like a return fare ... sometime bookable through the airline websites, other times not, but then expedia.com, opodo or kayak can be useful. Also noticed that SAS sometimes has cheap one way fares. I find wherever there is an LCC hub, the "legacy" airlines often will have reasonable one way fares, examples include Barcelona, London Gatwick, Oslo, Geneva, Milan, and others. As an example I recently looked at some fares from Belgrade. Swiss had Zurich one way for ~$800. They also had Geneva one way for ~$75. Same airline, same type of plane, longer distance!
 
I would like to have a big trip in Europe, and want to save as much as possible. However, I really had bad experience with Ryan Air.
So far I got Norwegian Air for ticket from Oslo to Santorini (50 EUR) and stuck at some other flights.
I tried SAS and Berlin Airlines.

Is there more option out there?
Without knowing your routes difficult to recommend airlines, but skyscanner.net is a good way to scope out the options.

The map in particular can be quite useful, generally bigger airports have more competion and hence better prices, so maybe a combination of flights and other transport!

http://www.skyscanner.com.au/cheap-flights-map
 
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It completely depends on where in Europe you'll be travelling. For low cost carriers, I'd say Norwegian (free wifi on all flights!) is the one of choice to and from Northern Europe, Vueling is good in Southern Europe, while Easyjet is a decent alternative for general low cost travel anywhere on the continent.
 
It completely depends on where in Europe you'll be travelling. For low cost carriers, I'd say Norwegian (free wifi on all flights!) is the one of choice to and from Northern Europe, Vueling is good in Southern Europe, while Easyjet is a decent alternative for general low cost travel anywhere on the continent.

totally agree. I even heard Ryan Air charges for toilet fee now...
 
totally agree. I even heard Ryan Air charges for toilet fee now...
Many places in the world charge you to go to the toilet, personally have never found it a problem on a one hour flight. I'm not a particular fan of Ryan Air myself, but if their fare was $50 for a short flight and the competition was $400 I'd probably use them.

Agree with the advice on alternatives, hence my suggestion that dependant on how much time you have an option might be train to whereever the decent LCC's fly from in some cases.
 
Uneducated and ignorant comments are pointless here... Ryanair don't charge to use the toilet...

And in addition, I think the OP will find that over the past 6 months or so FR have done a huge 180 on customer service and you might not find them to be the same airline they were a few years ago!

They carry 80 odd million passengers a year, an astounding representation of the value they offer. When hopping around Europe, as I will be doing again later this year Ryanair is almost a no brainier!

Pack well, hand luggage only, print and store boarding passes before getting to the airport and arrive on time, THEY WONT WAIT A FEW MINUTES FOR YOU LIKE A LEGACY CARRIER!
 
Don't forget about buses. I noticed DB Rail in Germany were advertising bus specials. Plus remember DB Rail and other rail networks have special rates if you book early or get multi day passes.

I don't like Ryanair but they serve city pairings that the bigger airlines don't do and I commend them for opening a diverse range of flight options across Europe.
 
Don't forget about buses. I noticed DB Rail in Germany were advertising bus specials. Plus remember DB Rail and other rail networks have special rates if you book early or get multi day passes.

I don't like Ryanair but they serve city pairings that the bigger airlines don't do and I commend them for opening a diverse range of flight options across Europe.

I check DB but cannot find the bus schedule? where?
 
There are buses operated by Deutsche Bahn and a link is IC Bus - convenient and affordable travel in Europe!

Eurolines is another company that offers bus services across Europe, probably more than Deutsche Bahn does. In Germany specifically, there is this website (Fernbus Suchmaschine » Jetzt alle Fernbusse vergleichen) comparing the different options and I am sure you will find an English version somewhere...

When I lived in Europe some years ago, I often used Ryanair for short weekend trips and I totally agree with The Rok: if you stick to their rules, they are an incredibly cheap way of getting around. Having said that, I never had an issue with a flight cancelled, rerouted or significantly delayed so maybe I was just lucky.
 
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