Having been a professional travel writer for a number of years and been lucky enough to travel to hundreds of destinations in 26 countries to date, I have to put my hands in the air and admit to the fact that I have fallen pray to the advertising gimmicks of the low cost airlines. And during that time I have learnt that these campaigns really are nothing more than gimmicks!
Like anyone else, if I can save quite a few pounds on flights to a certain destination, I am going to jump at it and this is why I did travel with low cost airlines for a time. However, when I reflect on the level of service that I have generally received, in comparison with the more traditional airlines, the few pounds saved no longer looks so appealing.
You see, I have learnt that the low cost airlines use this title as a convenient excuse to deny their passengers an acceptable level of basic customer service and actually make an art of ripping people off in every other conceivable way. The price that will come up against a flight, when you first enquire, will be an absolute load of rubbish.
Once the company has charged you for a bag each way, for boarding the flight 2 minutes quicker that some other passengers and charged you £20 just to use a debit card, trust me, the national flight carriers will probably work out cheaper.
I can honestly say that this deplorable lack of service should not and must not be the way forward for the travel industry. When companies look to break the law over EC regulations that dictate that they have a duty to look after stranded passengers, something must be fundamentally flawed within the industry.