The budget airlines are a big part of our money saving strategy in travel planning. We find them quite acceptable in most cases. They tend to charge extra for everything: luggage, meals, seat assignment etc. Here’s what we have experienced thus far with the budget airlines and the regional airlines you’ve never heard of:
Asia:
Air KBZ(Myanmar): we flew from Bagan & it worked fine.
Bangkok Airways(Thailand): Claims to be “Asia’s Boutique Airline,” but not really. We flew to Luang Prabang.
Capital Airlines(China): a Hainan Air subsidiary, we flew from Zhangjiajie
Jet Asia(Thailand): flight to Mandalay from Bangkok was canceled, got a full refund.
Jet Star(Australia): extensive inter-Asia & Oceania routes. We flew from Yangon.
Myanmar National Airlines: we flew to Mandalay. They canceled our direct flight from Hong Kong to Mandalay but replaced it with a connecting flight + an overnight hotel near Yangon Airport.
Nok Air: We flew from Bang Kok’s Donmuang Airport to Chiang Mai($29.) It was a short flight, and nothing was wrong.
Vietjet Air: We flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Our short flight was fine.
Europe/Mid-East/Africa:
Air Berlin(Germany): extensive routes in Europe & comes to the U.S., we used it several times & nothing memorable..
Belavia Airline(Belarus): We used it to fly to Moscow. Uses Zhukovsky Airport(ZIA) in Moscow, which was not well connected to the city center when we traveled in summer/2017.
Condor Airline(Germany): We flew from LAX to Amsterdam with a plane change in Manchester in Oct. 2017. ($350pp/one way)
Easy Jet(UK): extensive routes in Europe; flies out of Luton Airport in London. We used it a few times & it was ok.
Flydubai(UAE): We had to cancel one flight due to the U.S. State Department travel warning, and they gave us a voucher good for 1 year. Not much use to us!
Norwegian Air: Very well maintained planes and good service. Easy & cheap connection to various cities in Europe from their hubs in Scandinavian cities. We use it because they come to LAX.
Pegasus Airlines(Turkey): Based in Turkey & uses Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW) in Istanbul. We had to cancel one flight due to the U.S. State Department travel warning, and they gave us a full refund.
Ryanair(Ireland): The pioneer in budget flying in Europe. We’ve had 1Euro flights on Ryanair. (tax+fees is more than that, of course) Pay extra for water, meals, checked bags, seat assignment. Rental car prices come up on their site tend to be reasonable.
S7 Airlines(Russia): We flew from Irkutsk to LAX via ICN(Seoul). ICN-LAX was actually on Korean Airlines, which was very comfortable.
TAP Air Portugal: it was as good as any other flight when we flew to Boston.
Ural Air(Russia): we flew to Irkutsk & it worked.
WOW Airline(Iceland): Pay extra for checked luggage, carry-on luggage, meals, seat assignment. Decent leg room. The U.S.-Reykjavik flights use new Dreamliner jets. There tend to be frequent sales to Reykjavik from the U.S.(LAX to Iceland:$119/one way), and, connecting flights to other European cities from Reykjavik are reasonably priced(to London or Paris: $60-90/one way).
North America:
Jet Blue(USA): flies to over 100 destinations in North, Central, and South America. We love it for comfortable seats and good service.
South America:
Sky Airline(Chile): flew to Calama, and it was fine.
Star Peru: We flew to Lima & it was fine.
Small Wide World 