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| European Cheep Flights | |
| Saturday, 29 September 2007 | |
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When my friend from Hamburg, Germany, learned that I am going to be in London, he said that I have to come over and visit them in Hamburg. “Well, my trip is already booked,” I noted. “That’s not a problem; just go to ‘German Wings’ website and you can get a cheep flight from London to Hamburg,” he insisted. “I don’t fly with cheep airlines,” I said. “They, cannot afford proper maintenance of their aircrafts.” “But they obviously can. In fact they are flying for years, and never had any accident. They are actually expanding their fleet by a few new airplanes.” – My Hamburger friend is an engineer at Airbus and he knows what he is saying. So I agreed to check it out. I went to German Wings website (http://www.germanwings.com) and it turned out that they offered flights from London Gatwick (LGW) to Hamburg (HAM) for… £1 each way. The total cost with all additional expenses (taxes, airport fees, etc.) was, I think, about £42 for a round trip from London, England to Hamburg, Germany, and back. Out of curiosity I checked the cost of the flight with another European cheap airline that I heard about, the RyanAir from Ireland. It turned out that they offer a similar flight from London Stansted (STN) to Hamburg Lübeck (LBC), for only £0.10 each way and with lower additional fees. So their offer was, I think, thirty-something British Pounds for a round trip. I did not know where the airport London Stansted is, but I had been to Lübeck in the past, and I knew that it is at least one hour drive away from the outskirts of Hamburg. So, since German Wings were actually landing at the Hamburg Airport (HAM) the choice was simple. I made the decision to spend a week in Germany, flying from London to Hamburg with German Wings. “It’s about time to figure out, what the cheep flights are all about,” I said to myself. “There is no problem with cheep flights,” said my London friend, when I broke the news to him, “except that you just have to take your own wrench with you in case you need to secure your seat to the floor,” he added jokingly… Well, I decided to try it even without the wrench. And it worked pretty well! To tell the truth, I did not see much difference between this flight and most other flights. The most significant difference was that the seats were not assigned and I noticed some passengers trying to elbow their ways to get to the best seats. I guess I was lucky as both times I got a seat in the first raw, just steps from the exit door… The other difference was that there was only one flight attendant and there was, I believe, only one free drink offered during the flight. However, since the flight doesn’t even take two hours, I might have as well done without any attendant at all… To summarize, my first cheep flight was not a bad experience at all. I got the chance to visit my friends in Germany and saved a bunch of money while doing that. |
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| Posted by Jan Koncewicz
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Hi there from sunny Brunswick Heads, Australia
Have had a successful change to Alaska in '09 through your site and have another arranged for Nova Scotia later this year. Plus I am hosting someone from Reunion Island in April - all through your free site. Excellent!
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