Ryanair falls out of favour as Norwegian Air and easyJet voted best for budget flights (and BA is named UK's top airline)

Ryanair is no longer among the top five airlines in the UK for budget flights, according to a  survey. Norwegian Air topped the poll, voted the best for holidaymakers looking for value for money - with easyJet second, British Airways third, Jet2 fourth and Monarch making up the top five. While BA was voted the best airline in the UK overall, travellers believe they get better value for money elsewhere, with lesser-known Norwegian scooping first place. BA was revealed as the favourite carrier in four out of five categories - best food and drink, best customer service, best on board experience and best overall style - the Skyscanner survey of 4,000 Brits who frequently fly short haul revealed. 

 

But when it comes to price, the Scandinavians won out, voted the best value for money of any short-haul carrier operating to and from the UK. Norwegian, which has recently been pushing its cheap fares in a massive advertising campaign, is not seen by its customers as just a no-frills airline. It was second to BA for customer service, onboard experience and style and fourth behind BA, SAS and Lufthansa for best food and drink, said Skyscanner. Frequent fliers were only allowed to answer about airlines they had used in the last two years and any with fewer than 200 respondents were not included in the final tables.

Skyscanner's Mary Porter said British travellers were very 'proud' of BA and its motto of 'To Fly To Serve'. She added: 'It's perhaps not surprising that British Airways has scooped the top spot in our survey. 'But it is particularly interesting to see such strong results for a far less well-known airline - Norwegian. 'It goes to show that low cost does not necessarily mean an inferior product or service.'

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Budget flights on the rise, prices too

Budget airlines are expanding their range of routes from Germany but ticket prices are climbing along with them, a report from the German Aeronautics Centre (DLR) revealed on Thursday

Airlines in the industry's low-cost segment flew 466 routes from Germany last winter - an increase of 43 connections over the same period the previous year. Budget flights between Germany and Spain were up 28 percent, while connections to Britain increased by 14 percent and to Austria by ten percent, the DLR's "Low Cost Monitor" study found.

While low-cost airlines launched new connections to destinations such as Estonia from Germany, the number of German domestic routes fell by ten percent. Meanwhile ticket prices have taken a hike, with journeys costing between €70 and €160 in comparison to a range of €60 to €120 the previous year.

"Flying on a budget has got a good deal more expensive," said the DLR report's authors.

Air travel expert and consultant Heinrich Großbongardt told the Rheinische Post newspaper on Thursday that flights cost around five percent more than in spring 2013 and 30 percent more than five years ago.

"The reason is that the budget airlines are no longer coming into contact on the same routes. That has loosened the competition,” he said.

Despite creeping fares, over 65 million passengers flew with low-cost airlines from German airports in 2013, giving the cheap providers a 32 percent share of the total 203 million passengers. Air Berlin remains Germany's top budget airline, with its 1,700 flights a week taking up around 42 percent of the country's low-cost market, but Lufthansa's daughter company Germanwings is closing the gap.

Taking over a chunk of Lufthansa's flight plan, Germanwings flew 60 percent more routes over the winter than in the previous year and now run around 1,200 flights per week, the DLR report found.

As a result of Germanwings' expansion, Berlin's Tegel airport, from where Lufthansa runs many of its European flights, has boosted its roster of low-cost flights to 800 a week.

But London Gatwick airport remains Europe's capital for budget flights, launching 7,000 of them a week.

And across Europe Irish firm Ryanair is the biggest budget airline, running 7,500 flights each week and holding a 22 percent stake in the European low-cost market.

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