Cheap Flights UK

Travel Directory | Cheap Flights for British Travellers

Flight Problems? | useful air travel information sites [seat pitch, baggage delivery, flight tracking etc]

To find cheap flight tickets for British travellers we have listed reliable, fast and low-cost online agencies who broker for hundreds of airlines, as well as a couple of particularly good, low cost airlines. These agents also frequently offer car rentals, hotels, package holidays and even cruises in some cases.

Skyscanner - a fast way to check hundreds of budget, scheduled and charter airlines for low cost deals to travel anywhere, including a by month date search that shows when flights are cheapest. The site is intelligent and well organised. Best site in 2012.

Kayak - a clear, fast and efficient listing of cheap airfares, flights for multi-city trips, flights from multiple departure and arrival airports and easily change flight times. Prices includes taxes and fees and there's even a ' Buzz' tool if you're looking for destination inspiration! Best site in 2012.

Travel supermarket - Cheap flights and price comparisons from most popular airlines and travel agents, as well as prices of travel insurance, car hire, hotels and entire holidays. However, when they have technical issues that may result in unsuitable or incorrect quotes they choose NOT to warn users of glitches in the system.

Kelkoo - another well designed price-comparison travel site but Kelkoo's results are skewed because it fails to offer flights from some of the cheaper charter airlines such as Ryanair.

Netflights - the usual low cost flights but also offering hotel deals, car rentals, holiday packages and more. This is not necessarily a good thing as they may have lost their focus on cheap airline tickets.

Low Fare Flights - Comparing flight prices of the cheapest airfares to and from the UK around Europe.

Cheap Flights - a reliable and long-standing price comparison site for flights originally serving the UK but now offering airline tickets globally.

Dohop a simple quick flight/hotel/car hire comparison site including major airlines, prices and worldwide destinations including trips that start from non-UK ports.

Expedia - convenient for multi-bookings but slow and a little old fashioned.

ebookers - leading UK based agency representing over two hundred airlines

Fly Low Cost Airlines - European low-cost airlines' flights search engine.

Low Cost Airline Guide - looking a bit tired now but LCAG combines route information from many European budget airlines into one convenient location. You can quickly determine which airline flies on your desired route and then book your cheap flight direct with the airline.

Travelocity - the largest online booking agency but somewhat cumbersome and rarely the cheapest.

easyJet - probably Europe's most popular low-cost airline, with a fine online booking engine though staff are not incredibly well trained, all food and drinks on the plane need to be paid for, seat pitch is short and in flight sales pitch is long.

Ryanair - famous for offering incredibly cheap flights from UK and Ireland around Europe but equally famous for flying to distant and inconvenient airports, offering a truly sh** service, charging for just about everything possible in flight and having a constant barrage of commercials broadcast during the flight.

See a funny song and dance video about Ryanair Cheap Flights or the classic cheap airlines Hitler video.

bmi - cheap flights from the UK to Europe, Middle East and the USA.

Some other useful air travel related sites:

Seatguru - lists graphic seating plans of most of the world’s major airlines so you can choose the best seat available to you when checking in online.

Skytrax - 300,000 airline and airport reviews and a seat pitch guide [especially useful for long-haul flights].

Flightstats - loaded with all kinds of airline related information from travel warnings, current flight status tracking, weather conditions, security wait times and whinge forums.

Flymycase - a courier delivery service that delivers your luggage from your home to your destination address so you don’t have to carry it to and from the airport or worry about it ending up in Helsinki when you're in Tokyo [especially useful if you're flying BA!]

Flight problems?

Avoid problems | Complaints and Compensation | General consumer travel and holiday protection

London airports 2012; UK Border queues, how to reduce the possibility of a 2 hour wait at immigration:
• Don't fly to Heathrow, especially Terminal 5, though Stanstead airport also suffers long queues. Gatwick is the other major London airport, has good train services into central London and has less of a waiting-in-line problem.
• Aim to arrive during regular working hours, in other words 9am-6pm. Late flights are cheaper and consequently busier but the majority of UK Borders staff will be home in front of the TV having a beer at that point. Though, to be fair, some management are always at home. It's part of their job description.
• get a seat near the front of the plane, even if you have to pay a small premium and hurry off on arrival!
• travel only with hand luggage if possible as the baggage carousels are also in chaos since passengers cannot collect their baggage on time!
• Get a biometric passport, although the scanners still have reliability issues so the new passport may not help.
• There is a new plan to form a separate queue for travellers from outside Europe who do not require a visa, meaning shorter queuing times for US, Canadian, Japanese and some South American nationals.
The longest queuing times will be confined to those who need a visa to come to Britain, including Indian, Pakistani, and Jamaican citizens.
• note: this UK Border disruption is political problem due to appalling decision making by upper management and ministers. They decided to increase checks and reduce staff at the same time. Incompetence thy name is Theresa May [UK Home Secretary].