According to the 2018 Global Flight Price Ranking, four of the world’s top five cheapest airlines are Asian, with Air Asia X taking top spot, followed by Air India Express and Indonesia AirAsia.
The report, compiled by travel planning website Rome2Rio, stated that the average cost per kilometre for flights had increased from 17.75 US cents in 2016 to 18.8. A total of 50 carriers were analysed.
Of the top 30, 24 were based in either Asia or the Middle East.
“The AirAsia Group is particularly dominant with three of its airlines in the top 20,” said Kirsteene Phelan, chief operating officer at Rome2Rio. “Although Qantas (eighth) ranks highly for value, we are often seeing travellers from the UK to Asia and Australia booking with carriers such as Etihad (sixth), Royal Brunei Airlines (19th), China Southern (20th) and Emirates (25th). “This suggests that whilst overall value may be high for one airline over another, specific route pricing can vary greatly and travellers need to be vigilant for deals to ensure the best price to their destination.”
The research highlighted Virgin Atlantic as one of the few airlines to have reduced the cost of its flights since 2016, rising from 100th in the rankings to 42nd.
Rome2Rio analysed economy fares from 200 of the world’s airlines over a two-month period, racking up 1.5 million prices, to calculate cost per kilometres in US dollars.
Airfares follow certain trends – longer flights cost more, and some airlines are more expensive per km flown than others. However, there’s always more to the story than this. There are many factors which can influence per km costs, including the type of aircraft flown, routes flown, local salary and fuel costs, ancillary revenue and airport landing fees.
In comparison to the 2016 report of Rome2Rio, there have been minor shifts in pricing and ranking. The low end of both the international and domestic rankings have shifted up in cost per km. The upward pricing trend is largely due to increased fuel costs, a trend that may continue.
Scoot dropped dramatically in the international rankings (from #1 in 2016 to #31 in 2018), with the average price per km jumping from US$0.07 to US$0.12. The Tiger-Scoot merger in 2017 and the separation off of the Tiger brand in Australia, which now exists under different ownership, could be the main reason behind this.
“Other international standouts include Primera Air (#4 in the international rankings), a relatively new player in the low-cost, long-haul revolution. Mainly flying between Scandinavia and European holiday destinations, the airline has started branching out into low-cost flights from Europe to North America,” says Phelan.
WOW, another competitor on this low-cost Atlantic route, also ranks high (#7 overall) – but the third kid on this block, Norwegian Air, who had a booming 2017 with headline-grabbing fares, is way down the list at almost twice the cost/km as Primera.
For European travellers, Ryanair also comes high in the list, with a per km cost of US$0.10, which is comparable to some of the budget Asian carriers.
Australia’s Tiger Air swept the floor amongst the top 200 airlines by average price (US$) per kilometre on domestic flight searches, with its US$0.06/km cost.
Looking at the figures on a global scale, Chile was the cheapest country to fly in, with an average cost of $US0.11/km ($A0.15/km). Indonesia, Turkey, India and Bulgaria made up the rest of the top five list.
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