Nowadays some air line brand names such as Easy Jet and Ryannair sit alongside the major brands such as British Airways and Air France.



The trouble in the past was that the majority of the low cost carriers only serviced the smaller domestic markets of Europe.

But alongside the likes of Southwest Airlines in the United States, other low cost airlines have begun to appear on a regional basis worldwide.

In Australasia the budget air lines Virgin Blue and Compass now rival the likes of Qantas and Ansett for coverage in the skies.

In India, Air Deccan, Spicejet GoAir and indigo air lines now compete alongside the likes of Air India.

In South America Gol started in 2001 and BRA and Ocean Air now have expanding networks within Brazil.

In Africa and low cost airline's picture is patchy at best with only Kulula threatening the monopoly held by South African Airways. SAA have responded by launching their own low cost carrier called Mango. Mango seem to get coverage but partly it is due to a vastly subsidized basis which will probably only end in tears.

In the Middle East the only real serious low cost carrier is Air Arabia. It would appear the rest of the Middle East is not responding to well to the desire for cheap air travel. It is probably down to too much oil sloshing around the place anyway. However it would appear that other low cost start ups may be in the offing and Jazeera Airways costs daunting to fly from Kuwait and Dubai to India and Egypt.

In the Far East the low cost airline business stopped it seriously with Tiger Airways and Jet Star Asia Airways in Singapore whilst across the border in Malaysia, Air Asia operate. In Thailand, Nok Air operates and in Vietnam there is Pacific Airlines. Sadly the low cost airline business in Indonesia is blighted by the poll safety record off Indonesia is Adam Air. However Lion Air and Air Asia have quite a developing network.

Finally in the United States of America the air line that started the whole Low-cost no frills airline revolution in1971, Southwest Airlines is going from strength to strength and has been joined by JetBlue. In Mexico there are a couple of Low Cost carriers of which Aviaca and Aero California are supposed to be the better ones.

In Canada despite the earliest low-cost carriers going into receivership West Jet now serves 24 cities and flies to the United States too.

The problem with all of this has always been how do you connect it all? that have always been certain areas geographically that have not been able to be covered but now it would appear that things are about to change. Not only that but standards in the low cost airlines is also vastly improving as well

As they say in the media watch this space.