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Eastern Europe is a popular destination for travellers

Thursday 06 Sep 2007 11:45am

With the introduction of cheap flights across Europe from carriers such as Ryanair, easyJet, Wizzair and bmibaby (although there are many more), Western Europe was the major destinations for these airlines. However, in recent years the Eastern European market has opened up considerably with Ryanair and easyJet flying to many Eastern European countries. Wizz Air, itself based prodominently in Poland offers over 50 destinations including UK and Spain from its Polish bases. The low cost fares offered by these airlines has made travel to Eastern Europe affordable for the average man in the street. Prices for accomodation and eating out in places such as Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary are all low in comparison to Western European prices. Since 2002, bookings for Eastern European destinations for the budget or low cost airlines has increased from 2 million Euros to over 526 million Euros. This growth is also set to continue with expected bookings looking to reach close to 900 million Euros by 2010. To keep costs low, budget airlines often cut back on supplementary services such as encouraging online bookings via the Internet, or charging extra for taking luggage onboard the plane, or not providing meals on the flight. They operate on small margins of only a few Euros/UK Pounds but the volume of passengers ensure that decent profits are made. Typically, airlines such as Wizzair have 75% of seats sold online; SkyEurope 65% sold online and Centralwings having 60% sold online. The market for cheap flights across Europe is extremely competitive with airlines such as Ryanair offering over 500 routes across Europe and easyJet offering over 300 routes. Both these airlines announce new routes with extremely regularity without hardly a week going by without any new routes. As Ryanair and easyJet have been running low cost operations since the late 1990s they have a big headstart in terms of passenger numbers and infrastructure. The logistics of running an airline are complex and trying to startup and compete with the leaders in the industry creates a barrier of entry. However, airlines such as Wizzair, SkyEurope, Centralwings and Germanwings are all experiencing steady growth and offering more routes to Western Europe - a move which is very likely to see their passenger numbers increase in the coming months as well as providing an every increasing stream of tourists and travellers to Eastern Europe.

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