Here are four reasons as to why flying with budget airlines is very often a false economy.
My Budget Travel Tips and Hacks hub page has lots more tips, tricks and hacks to help you travel for longer.
1. Do 6 AM budget flights actually save you money?
Many low-cost airlines schedule their departures at ungodly hours. In addition to being hard on the body, you need to call a cab to get to the airport because public transport doesn’t run at 4 am.
When I lived in England, the EasyJet flights used to leave at 6 am. The first bus from Milton Keynes never used to leave until around 9 am. On a few occasions, I had no other option than to pay the 30 quid for a taxi.
Not all airports are open 24 hours a day. And when they are, getting to the airport at around 11 pm, just to spend an uncomfortable night in a plastic chair or on the floor, doesn’t do it for me. Check-out from the hotel is also probably at around 10 am, or noon if you are lucky. Hanging around without being able to rest is just too damn tiring for me.
Airport hotels are always extremely pricey, though I did find a cheap hotel five minutes from Ivato Airport in Antananarivo, Madagascar, once.
2. The shrinking carry-on baggage allowance trap
Flying is Cheap if You Don’t Have Any Baggage
Over the last few years, carry-on baggage allowances have been reduced significantly. You used to get 10 kg plus a small day bag, which, for most trips, was more than enough, even with those cheap and nasty airlines like EasyJet.
Now, many budget airlines have a limit of 8 kg and must not exceed 40 cm in length. Some even less.
If you are a travel blogger, a laptop and all the gear will be around 3 kg, leaving little room for other gear, so you will have to pay big fees to check in another bag.
Ground crew can be pretty anal about luggage being ever so slightly over the limit. That’s how they make their money, after all.
I like airlines that still have a 10 kg carry-on allowance, plus a personal bag, which must fit under the seat in front, like I had when I flew with Arajet from Mexico to Santo Domingo, or from Mexico City to Bogota on Avianca.
3. The scandal of paid seat selection fees
You book that cheap flight to your next destination, and then 24 hours before you fly, you do your online check-in, and then you have to select your seat, which you have to pay for. This is scandalous. Sometimes you can proceed, allowing the airline to assign you a seat. But not always.
I like to sit in the aisle seat. Everyone used to prefer the window seat. Now aisle seats are available at a premium.
4. Paying through the nose for basic drinking water airside
If you are flying on a budget airline, you won’t get any food, snacks or drinks. Security rules mean that you have to empty your refillable water bottle before you go through security.
You are then forced to buy overpriced water in yet another plastic bottle once you are airside, knowing that you won’t get free water once on the plane.
Airlines like Ryanair are “stopping Brits taking water onboard as passengers were filling their bottles with vodka”. This, I feel, will become the norm, forcing you to pay through the nose for water on board.
When I flew World2Fly from Punta Cana to Madrid, I asked the girl for some water. Imagine trying to do that on EasyJet?
