THE COSTS OF FLYING CHEAP
On a quest to save money on airfare, we tested five budget carriers. The experiences proved variously outrageous, excellent and annoying. Is the pain worth the price?
Booking a flight to your vacation destination can be stressful, especially if you’ve never heard of some of the carriers you’re seeing. (Is “Wow” really the name of an airline? It is.) And most of the new carriers are advertising low fares, but you have some reservations. Are they trustworthy? Are they safe? And most of all, will they really save you money? To find out, I sampled five low-cost carriers this summer that fly to places that are reader favorites — or maybe on their bucket lists: Allegiant, which serves a host of smaller markets; Norwegian, which has become something of a low-cost darling; Spirit, consistently voted the most hated airline in America; Thomas Cook, around for a dozen years but relatively new to LAX; and Wow, an Icelandic airline. You can thank me later. Among the lessons learned? Low expectations are key, and a ticket on a budget airline may not be a bargain when all is packed, checked and paid for. Here’s a look at what it was like to fly each one, and I’ve given each a letter grade.
Allegiant Air
Round trip, LAX to Honolulu
The airline, based in Las Vegas, offers flights from LAX to more than 110 U.S. destinations.
It departs from Terminal 3, which has just one restaurant, a Burger King, two sets of restrooms and the Starbucks line from hell. The plane/your seat: The interior of the Boeing 757-200 was worn. Its leather seats were cracked, and its carpeting was dirty. The cabin wasn’t spotless, but I wasn’t afraid to touch anything.
Need legroom? Book a Legroom-plus seat with a 34-inch pitch (the number of inches from a point on your seat to the same point on the seat in front of you) in Row 4 on the right side of the plane. I had to unbuckle my seat belt and stand to reach my bag under the seat in front of me.
I had a regular seat with standard legroom (30-inch pitch) on the return flight from Honolulu.
No in-flight entertainment, so you’ll need to have a book or load movies on your smartphone or tablet. Customer service/attendants: The attendants wore orange or navy polo shirts and khaki shorts. Their attitudes matched their attire: Everyone was laid-back and polite. What you’re eating: Whatever you brought with you. There is no meal option, but there are snacks (crackers, chips, nuts) and drinks (including alcoholic options) for sale ($2 to $7). And no, water is not free. It’s $2 a bottle. What I paid: Round-trip airfare, including taxes: $478.05. Carry-on bag fee: $50 round trip. Seat selection fee: up to $80 per one way. I paid $55 round trip for my seat selection. If I had used a credit card rather than a debit card to buy my round-trip ticket, I would have paid $32 more. Printing a boarding pass at the airport would have cost $5 more. Grand total: $583 round trip.
Did I save money? Yes. The next lowest base fare: round-trip LAX-Honolulu on Hawaiian Airlines in the same time period for $785. Overall grade: B+, based on comfort level and good customer service.