After staying in Madrid for a while I decided to visit Rome, Italy for the first time.
I thought of staying there for only one week so I looked for cheap flights so that I did not have to spend a lot of money on the trip.
I searched for airline companies on the Internet and I discovered that prices varied a lot among the different airlines.
I found flight tickets which were between EUR20 and EUR300.
As prices were so different, I decided to find out why.
On the one hand I found that companies which offered cheap flights were not that generous because what they were really doing was reducing their operating costs to the maximum so that they could make profits from a ticket which was worth as much as a bus fare.
The so-called low-cost companies are relatively new.
Two decades ago, if someone told you that you could travel from Madrid to Rome for as much as EUR20, you would not believe that.
New airline companies were created in the 90s together with the European economic deregulation.
These companies had to gain market.
But what did they have to do in order to compete with big firms and get a fraction of the market?The answer consisted of an aggressive price battle.
The new and small airlines reduced their costs and started to offer their customers the possibility of traveling through cheap flights at incredibly convenient prices.
Airlines differ from each other in three areas: the operating area, the service area and the human area.
A company that provides cheap flights for just EUR20 will not have the same company structure and organization as a company that offers a EUR300 flight ticket.
Let us see the differences.
When it comes to the operating area, planes are generally smaller and therefore, they have less seats.
Consequently, using cheap flights will be something similar to traveling by train or bus.
In addition, stopovers tend to be shorter, taking less than an hour so that they can go on flying and having more flights.
By doing this, most of the time planes are not on solid ground so control is avoided.
Another fact you should know is that low-cost flights destinations do not land on main airports, but in less frequent airports.
That is why these companies do not have to pay so much for taxes.
With respect to the service, food is not provided in cheap flights.
If you want to eat something, you will have to pay for it.
On-board service is poor.
Customer service tends to be inadequate because they do not have customer service offices.
Everything regarding sales and information is carried out online.
You can buy your flight ticket and then print a voucher, go to the airport and exchange it for your boarding pass.
Regarding the human area, these companies tend to have few people working for them.
As they do not normally have customer service offices, they need fewer people for running their business.
They sell cheap flights online.
Employees do not have high-quality uniforms and what is more, they are not provided accommodation at hotel as they are traveling from one place to another most of the time.
To sum up, all these differences will allow you to purchase cheap flights.
Although you will reach your destination, you will get there in a different way.
So far, no one has complained as trips do not take long and the airfare is worth a try.