Blue sky thinking for bargains

The weather is cold, the nights are long… so our thoughts begin to turn to getting away from it all and a bit of sunshine. Of course none of us want to pay a fortune to do so which is why budget airlines are so popular.

But who are the best low cost airlines to fly with? Who are the Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs)? We’ve been doing some research...

While we’re all used to cheap flights equalling no-frills on board, we’re predicting turbulent times ahead for airlines trying to charge us too much for “extras”.

For instance our WRPs when it comes to budget airlines - Scandinavian Airlines, Icelandair and Jet2 – might not give you free food on short-haul flights but then given the ticket price you’d never expect them to do so.

It’s a different story at British Airways which recently ditched free meals on flights of less than five hours, offering instead an M&S sandwich deal for £7.55.

Unsurprisingly when we asked 1500 BA travellers what they thought, 81 per cent said that the company should now reduce its ticket prices - though there’s no sign of that happening.

In fact the “extras” at BA can more than double a cheap ticket price - travel from Gatwick to Malaga and the £75 quoted can reach £173 if you add in luggage costs, food, legroom and a credit card charge.

And with Ryanair checking in a large case, asking for more legroom and a meal could treble the price of a ticket.

Paying for “extras” can mount up. So it’s good to know if they’re really worth it - of the short-haul passengers we asked, 87 per cent said yes for legroom rising to 90 per cent for Ryanair and Easyjet passengers.

However only 58 per cent said that paying to check in a suitcase was worth it - falling to half for BA and Aer Lingus passengers.

The moral of the story is not to be tempted just by the low ticket price. Read the small print, decide what extras you really need and find the airline which provides them at a price you’re willing to pay.