Budget
Wow, this is the exciting moment for our budget travelers! Budget airlines have been striving hard for better market share by lowering down air fares all this while but passenger service quality are always criticised by their customers. However, low-cost does not need to, nor should it be equal to low-quality service. There are low cost airlines that provide reasonably good standard of customer care and passenger service quality.
Thanks to Skytrax, a specialist Research Advisors to the air transport industry based in London, as part of the World Airline Awards™ organised by them based on their annual survey, announced the Top 5 Low-cost Airlines of the year 2008 recently. The Awards are recognised around the world, and renowned for being the only truly global, Independent passenger survey of airline standards. Winners in the award are considered as the most budget-travelers preferred airlines in the world where low-cost and good quality are proved to be able to exist concurrently.
Here are the top 5:
EasyJet – An Uk based budget airline with a mission to provide customers with safe, good value, point-to-point air services, and to effect and to offer a consistent and reliable product and fares appealing to leisure and business markets on a range of European routes;
Virgin Blue – An Australian based member of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin group of UK, Virgin Blue and its international carriers Pacific Blue and Polynesian Blue currently operate a fleet of 60 modern Boeing 737 and Embraer E170 and E190 E-Jet aircraft. It has also launched Australia’s newest international airline, V Australia, set to commence flights between Australia and the USA from late 2008. Its on-time performance has scored highly in the award;
Jetstar Airways – An Australia’s and Singapore’s new low fare airline for Australia and the Asia-Pacific with the aim to provide consistent low fares to Australian, New Zealand and Asian leisure travellers. Started flying within Australia in 2004, Jetstar’s Australian operation is wholly owned by Qantas but is managed separately and operates independently, while the Jetstar’s intra Asian operation is a Singapore-based partnership between Qantas (49%), local businessmen Tony Chew (22%) and FF Wong (10%) and Temasek Holdings (19%) with the hub based in Singapore;
Air Berlin -Being the second largest airline in Germany, Air Berlin offers its customers the best value for money in terms of its service, onboard catering, 20 kg free baggage allowance per passenger, generous child discounts and favourable conditions for the carriage of pets and special or bulky items of baggage, and
Southwest Airlines – Southwest Airlines Co is an American low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas. It is the largest airline in the United States by number of passengers carried domestically per year and also the largest airline in the world by number of passengers carried.
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
‘Budget travel? Do I need that?’ Perhaps it’s just for me who has limited budget and time but been dreaming for travelling more. ‘What is budget travel?’ It’s as simple as a Travel with budget constraint as opposed to luxury travel. There are always 2 option of travel, either luxury or budget, and both have their pros and cons (not right or wrong). ‘What is the essence of budget travel?’ It’s a bit tricky here. For a good quality budget travel, it is not as simple as save money on your travel. The true essence of budget travel is to limit your budget on extravagance and spend sparingly but sufficiently on exploration of the local living and culture.
Clear? Let’s start our top 5 steps to plan for your budget travel as follows:
- Travel Destination – Firstly, you have to decide where you wish to travel most at this moment, somewhere you have been dreaming about all this while. At this stage, a rough budget is extimated. Surely said that you can’t choose a country or destination where you can’t even afford the air ticket or transportation cost! Thanks to the upcoming and popular budget airlines nowadays that travelling to lots of places in the world are no longer a dream only!;
- Set Your Budget – Set your exact affordble budget. Don’t stretch your credit card limit until couln’t pay back! Set budget for transport, travel expenses and some extra for your beer or coffee! Then you have to choose your option of travel: Luxury or Budget. If you decided on luxury travel, then add Travel Feeder to your RSS Feed reader for coming updated tips on luxury travel!
- Go online! – Book your air tickets online! The benefits are certainly the cost. Online booking is usually cheaper than drop-in as you are paying them in advance and which is normally NOT refundable! Visit one of your local budget airline websites to look for cheapest flights and time available. Malysian Air Asia for instance, air ticket price depends on the date and time of flights. The more advance you book, the more saving you could get! Some of the famous low cost Airlines are JetStar Australia, Tiger Airway Singapore, EasyJet England, Virgin America, Spanair Spain (Oops!) and Nok Air Bangkok (Oops Oops!!);
- Go online Too! – Book also your budget hostel online too, if possible. It will easily cut off half of your accomodation cost if you search around for the best deal and book in advance (off course after your flight booking confirmation). Hostel World is one good example of online hostel search engine which searches over 17,000 hostels in 168 countries! You just key in your destination and date in the form on top of sidebar and they will search for you NOW! Some might prefer to book the first few nights online and search and book the rest only when they reach there. This is good practice when you are planning to have some feeder trips from your original destination. Then off course, adjust your budget a little bit, and
- Finally, wait until tha date comes! – If you have time constraints or you are still under employment, apply leave in advance! Then read my previous posts on the Top 5 Things To Do Before Your Travel!
If you have observed it well, budget travel is all about planning your trip well in advance! Travel Tips: Last minute travel is always your last option of vacation travel. If you like this post, you may like to subscribe FREE to Travel Feeder’s RSS Feed. – Travel Feeder.
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
“Come on Cecil, you mentioned about the Top 5 things to do on our vacation travel, Top 5 things to do before vacation travel, now what? Top 5 things NOT to do on our travel? Haven’t you highlighted that we should relax on our vacation? How could we follow so many rules of Do’s and [...]
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
This is the follow up post of my previous popular article: Top 5 Things To Do Before Your Vacation Travel. Although many travelers would have ideas of what they are going to do on their vacation travel, some may have too much idea in their mind but too little time during that short period of vacation tour. [...]
