UK Ferry Tickets

Whatever your views are on the environment, we’ve never had it so good in terms of the choice of no-frills flights on offer.

In January, an incredible two million more no-frills seats were on sale within Europe than in the same time last year; a jump of 12 per cent to just over 15 million. That is for one month alone!

Another sobering statistic is that five years ago, in January 2002, less than three million no-frills flights were on sale within Europe.

The number of no-frills seats available to and from Europe last month jumped 57 per cent to 220,000. There were none five years ago.

The figures were supplied by transport and information company OAG. Managing director Duncan Alexander says: “Currently there seems to be no ceiling to the expansion of the low cost sector. Each year you think it is going to slow down yet existing players expand and although some leave the stage, there are plenty of new arrivals.”

As for worldwide seats available, there were 19.1 million to and from Europe last month, some 1.1 million more than in January last year and 4.3 million more than in January 2002, when the global aviation industry was still reeling from the aftershocks of 9/11.

One more unbelievable statistic for you: throughout the world, some 280.5 million airline seats were on sale last month alone.

Is it a good or bad thing?

Guest Article by Jeremy Skidmore

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007