SkyEurope Is No Longer a Budget Airline

Many blogs out there are still reporting the fabulous fares on budget airlines. Taking a closer look, these blogs are really retail sites that suck you in to exploring their site further and receiving money for clicks on their links like an AdSense account. Budget airlines are not the budget savings they once were. Just as the major airlines are experiencing crisis proportions, so are the budget airlines.

Case in point: I decided I needed a summer break before starting to teach again in September. I will be in charge of a new program, which is creating a minor in Journalism. Most of my summer was spent researching reading books to use for classes and developing a curriculum. This summer was hot and drawn out. Many days, I spent working with my fall semester thesis students to get a jump on the semester, since I have seven of them. My last get-away was our short rain-filled days in Istanbul in March, so I was itching to get out of the city, even if only for a breather of a different culture. Searching the SkyEurope site after getting the e-mail newsletter stating they were having a sale, I booked us two tickets to Trieste, Italy. We leave this Sunday. The fare price for the two of us round-trip was 6,000 Huf. At today's exchange rate, it would seem that it is an incredible bargain at $39.73. Two tickets, round-trip from Budapest to Italy for $40.00? Wow! Here is where the hook comes in. You immediately start fantasizing about being away, even if you have no clue about the destination, romantic scenes flit through your mind. Honestly, I had no idea what the attraction to Trieste is still. I will blog it later. So as you go from the fantasy price screen and click "Continue", here is where the idyllic daydreams start to show the cracks and crumble into reality. There is a payment charge for using your credit card to book online. This happens to be 4,000 Huf ($26.50). The fee is much higher if you have the audacity to call their phone center or use a travel agent. Silly of me, but I chose to have a confirmation sent to my mobile phone: cost 250 Huf ($1.65). Because we travel with saline solution for my contacts, shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, toothpaste, and so on, we chose to check one bag to store all of these "liquids" rather than hassle with trying to find the 3 oz. bottles needed. Budapest does not have a readily accessible travel store or any other to run out a purchase these little nnecessities. The fee to check one bag is 3,600 Huf ($23.85). Had we done the calculations ahead of time, we could have bought the things we needed once in Trieste probably at a lower cost. Now the hefty hidden charge, the "Fees and Taxes": 22,026 Huf ($145.86). So all in all, our BUDGET airline fare of 6,000 Huf or $39.73 transforms magically into a grand total of 38,874 Huf ($257.44) or $128.72 for each of us. For the unseasoned, this may still seem like a bargain and yes, it is cheaper and more convenient than the train. Points taken. However, just a couple of years ago, when budget airlines were budget airlines and there were 20 of them flying in and out of Budapest, we really had bargains. We flew to Zurich for 35 Euros each, total with fare and taxes, one way. We trained to Milan and flew home from Milan for 30 Euros each total with fare and taxes. "Those were the days my friend, we thought they would never end..." Actually, we thought it would only get better with the competition. If we could have forseen the future, we would have traveled more while the getting was ripe for the picking. SkyEurope tried snaring me once again yesterday. Their newsletter announced a 2 for 1 sale good until January 2009. Buy one ticket and the second one is completely free of fares and taxes. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Being a risk taker, I went forward for the potential shame moniker with thoughts of an autumn break get-away in mind. The problem is that SkyEurope only flies from Budapest to Trieste. Flying from Vienna or Bratislava had numerous choices. Each is only three hours away, but if it is an early morning flight, it would mean an overnighter in either city the night before. But, hey, 2 for 1? With that savings, why not? Here is the catch. We tried Vienna to city after city that interested us, but "No flights are avaiable for this time period". When you look at their calendar for October and November, you would think the airline had gone under. City after city only showed blank calendars. Trying from Bratislava, the same was true. Nice trick. We are offering you a sale, but we are not offering any flights. Ha, ha, jokes on you! Well, SkyEurope, you are now on my blacklist. We will take the train to Heidelberg visit one of my students there instead.

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Budget Airlines Again

Since the last post with the comment on SkyEurope falling out of the sky, I have been keeping a sharp eye on the budget airline news. So many travel writers and travel bloggers, mostly US based are still shouting the praises of "cross the big pond with the cheapest flight possible and then traipse through Europe with budget airlines". What this tells me is that they are not really doing their research thoroughly enough. It reminds me of a recent travel article for Budapest that was in the travel section of a top Arizona newspaper just two months ago. The author was raving about the experiences of the Budapest thermals and spoke so highly of the Racs Thermal. The Racs closed down in 2002. Travel writers should try their absolute best to get it right. If you have not been to a destination in years, skip the topic and write what you do know about from recent trips. Here are some snippets of news from different sites about the troubles of European budget airlines. "Hungarians, Bitter says, are not flying as much as Slovakians or Czechs and most of SkyEurope's Budapest flights were filled exclusively with foreigners going on holiday. He adds that fares from Budapest and Prague to Western European cities are similar, but Prague flights are an hour shorter, making them by far a more profitable venture. He says the Slovakian economy is also stronger, growing at 14% annually compared with only 1% in Hungary. "It's night and day." For the full article see www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/23/223221/jason-bitter-slowing-down-expansion-at-skyeurope.html It also is a telling tale why Slovakia is going on the Euro in January 2009 and Hungary will be lucky to get there in 2012. Ryanair one of the oldest and most stable of the no frills is having problems as well. This was part of a longer article at www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/23/223145/high-fuel-prices-lead-to-airline-casualties.html "Ryanair warned earlier this year that its profits for the fiscal year ending March 2009 could fall by as much as 50% due to high oil prices and fears of recession. The carrier has embarked on a cost-cutting programme that will see staff salaries frozen and aircraft grounded this winter to help it cope with its rising fuel bill. "We will sit 20 of our aircraft on the ground this winter because it's cheaper than flying them," says Ryanair deputy chief executive Michael Cawley. 'That's wrong and it's a huge issue for us. We've made a virtue in the past of having year-round servicesbut I want to point out the difficulty we'll have this year.'" EasyJet jumps into the ring with the headline EasyJet exec predicts cull of budget airlines. The stark warning of a cull of low-cost airlines came as the British budget airline's shares fell more than 4 percent after another spike higher in oil prices towards $120 a barrel.

"There are currently about 50 low-cost carriers on the European market -- that's absurd," Francois Bacchetta, managing director of EasyJet France, told a news conference.

In a few years' time there will be no more than about three or four of us left in Europe," he said. Posted at www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL2332471920080423.

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