“Low cost” does not necessarily mean cheaper plane tickets…

Using low cost carriers to go to Prague can indeed be cheaper but doesn’t systematically mean cheaper. Just recently, Czech Airlines and Air France terminated their codeshare agreement*. Together, they would operate 6 flights per day – now they have 8 all together… and that had an impact on prices.

These days, if you look for the cheapest flights, you might find a return ticket as low as 99€ on Air France or Czech Airlines ! At that kind of prices, 90% of the price of your ticket represent airport taxes and fuel charges… i.e., you cant get much lower.
Flying with low cost companies might only save a couple of euros, if not more expensive.

…The question is, with prices not being that much cheaper with low costs, what do you prefer : classic airlines (where you generally get good service, newspapers and a drink) or low cost ? 🙂

 

* Note: A few months after the article was written, Air France and Czech Airlines decided to resume their code share cooperation.

How to get to Prague by plane?

Prague is today one of the main airports in Central Europe and is connected with all the main cities in Europe through regular airlines or low cost companies.

Main regular airlines flying to Prague

The main regular airlines at Prague Vaclav Havel airport are Air France, Aeroflot, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Czech Airlines, Lufthansa, LOT Polish Airlines, KLM.

Czech Airlines is the Czech national airline company. They are part of the SkyTeam alliance, as well as Air France, Aeroflot and Alitalia mentionned here above. They offer great connections from Prague to the Central European region.

Low cost airlines flying to Prague

The low cost airlines (# of connections) that are currently operating at the airport are: Smartwings (27), Ryanair (4), Easyjet (5) and Wizzair (15).

Even if some of the above mentionned companies are mentionned as low cost they won’t necessarily offer you the best price to Prague. Indeed, Prague is a competitive destination and most of the regular airlines flying to Vaclav Havel offer very good prices.

You can find all the airlines on the official website of Prague airport : http://www.csl.cz/en/site/informace_o_letech/destinace_aerolinky/aerolinky.htm