The Low Cost Flights Have Arrived
After months of great talk and anticipation about it, Ryanair started flights to Malta this week. For those of you outside Europe, it is the biggest low-cost airline in the continent. Over the past few years it and the other new low-cost carriers have taken the European market by storm and greatly changed the nature of air travel. Their strategy has been not only to offer lower fares, but to connect previously unavailable pairs of smaller cities. Instead of having central “hubs” in the major capitals, they offer flight combinations such as from Málaga to Pisa, or from Tallin to Montpélier. They provide a good alternative to the traditional national carriers, which are getting more and more expensive, and which also require that you fly via a major capital. This can be a pain if your destination is a smaller city.
This sure is sounding like an advert, but the real point of all this is that now Malta is included in this network! A few other small low-cost carriers already fly here, but since Ryanair is the biggest one we are now better connected to Europe. EasyJet, its major competitor, is supposed to start flying here soon. And the government is now offering incentives for airlines offering service to Malta from under-served destinations. So my longed-for side trip to Madrid might be possible soon.
One of the things I have been looking forward to about living in Malta is that European cities are so near, and therfore so easy to visit. And now, it will be cheaper to get to them. In my mind, I am planning all sorts of trips already. Now, about finding that job…
