Experts say low-cost airlines doesn’t mean low safety

PARIS: The budget airlines that have won a major share of the European aviation market are subject to the same safety and maintenance requirements, experts said Tuesday, and have rarely been involved in accidents.

The crash Tuesday in the French Alps of an Airbus 320 operated by Germanwings, the low- cost unit of Lufthansa, killing all 150 on board, was only the second accident involving a budget airline in Europe.

A Boeing 737 operated by the Cypriot company Helios crashed in Greece in 2005, following a breakdown in the oxygen supply, killing all 121 on board.

Following the deregulation of the European air travel in the early 1990s, budget airlines have swooped up 30 to 40 per cent of the market in medium-range flights, according to Bertrand MoulyAigrot, an air transport specialist at Archery Strategy Consulting.

Low- cost pioneer Ryanair, with its f leet of 300 Boeing 737s, has become one of the major players in Europe, operating 1,600 flights daily serving 186 airports in 30 countries.

Its British rival EasyJet, which will soon have 226 Airbus A320s, operates an average of 1,400 flights each day.

These two companies, and more recent emulators such as Air Berlin, Vueling, Norwegian and Wizz Air, have forced traditional airlines to adapt or face being squeezed out of the medium-haul market.

Lufthansa shifted its European f lights to Germanwings except for those serving its two biggest domestic hubs Frankfurt and Munich, including the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf that crashed on Tuesday.

IAG, which owns British Airways and Iberia, has snapped up Spanish-based Veuling.

Air France-KLM has been trying to expand a low- cost subsidiary, Transavia, although pilots unions have slowed its development. — AFP