Today, increasing awareness of climate change has meant that budget air travel in Europe is often targeted as an environmental disaster. On the consumer side, passengers are overwhelmed by a huge number of fees and charges—for checking a bag, for checking in at the airport, for preferred seating, for using a particular credit card—all of which continue to creep upwards.

The stories told about low-cost carriers tend to focus on the distance of secondary airports from the cities they purport to serve, the rudeness of staff, the inflexibility of various charges and the difficulty in obtaining refunds for canceled flights.

People continue to fly budget airlines in great numbers, of course, but they’re not enjoying themselves. How could things be improved? How could a budget airline actually build a fan base?

Here are five suggestions for improving budget airlines in Europe:

1. Offer transparency in marketing and pricing.

An airport named after a city 100 km away does nobody any favors. Acknowledge location and market around it. Eliminate last-minute charges for the use of a particular credit card. While you’re at it, get rid of perks like early boarding that make embarkation so regimented and unpleasant.

2. Provide a carbon offset opt-out option.

Under this proposal, passengers would be able to click a box to remove the carbon offset option from their flights and save a euro or two. Some would do this. Many would not. Here’s a better and more radical idea: get tons of press by announcing that all flights will be carbon offset in their entirety.

3. Develop a simple, well-scrubbed aesthetic.

Budget airlines shouldn’t be grubby. They should be enveloped in simplicity, ease, and lightness. Colors should be gentle and music should be soft. Flight attendants should have nice uniforms that reflect the airline’s aesthetic. (They should also look rested, competent and pleased to be at work.) License a pleasant 30-minute electronic score for boarding.

4. Offer tasty snacks for purchase.

If ancillary income is the key, offer something worthwhile—tasty treats with some real relationship to the departure or destination city. Also, keep mark-ups in check. On-board mark-ups need not be extortionate.

5. Brand around location.

Souvenir items sold in flight shouldn’t be anonymous. Why stock the duty-free cart with items that can be found in any international airport when cute objets of local relevance make better gifts? Fill the in-flight magazine with the insights of interesting people who populate the route map’s destination cities.

Your recommendations

Can you think of other ways that budget carriers could improve their service? Do you agree or disagree with these points? Tell us about it in the comments section.

The post Flight Memo: 5 ways to improve European budget airlines appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Last week, in the wake of the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, first the countries of northern and western Europe closed their airports. And then country after country to the south and east followed suit. The whole thing proceeded as if by incredibly rapid viral transmission. Very quickly all sorts of relatively arcane volcano terminology began to crop up on television news programs in Europe.

The ash arrives in Romania and Moldova

For days I monitored the expanding shade of ash across the BBC’s map of Europe. Then on Saturday morning, I awoke to learn from an employee at our hotel in Gura Humorului, Romania that Romania and Moldova had closed their airports. Suddenly it seemed likely that I too would be directly affected by the air travel stoppage that had come to paralyze Europe.

The lack of regular updates by trusted sources became a source of frustration. Eurocontrol, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, has been updating their volcanic ash cloud maps far too infrequently. And then there are many publications listing European countries with full or partial airspace closures that have been omitting Moldova from their tabulations altogether, despite the fact that the Chisinau airport has been closed for days.

Taking flight today?

Today I’m scheduled to fly from Chisinau to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. As of this moment, very early on Tuesday morning in Chisinau, my flight is scheduled to take off as planned around noon.

My mother—my traveling companion for the past week-and-a-half—is supposed to be Milan-bound on Meridiana at noon tomorrow. Her flight has been canceled outright. We’ve spent many of the last few hours sketching out contingency plans for her. Happily, she’s on vacation and can take the time to make her way south and west.

The post Flight Memo: Volcanic ash across Europe appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.