Low-cost Airlines 'have No Backup'

Low-cost airlines are fine as long as no problems occur, an industry expert has claimed.

James Fremantle, a spokesperson for the Air Transport Users Council, explained that consumers love the low-cost flights offered by many airlines but often find that backup services do not exist if something goes wrong with their trip.

He explained: "Cheap and cheerful is fine as long as things don't go drastically wrong.

"The major issue when it comes to those sorts of airlines is that because their costs are so low they haven't got the backup that you would with an airline like British Airways.

"As long as the journey goes right in terms of leaving on time and getting luggage on time then people are quite happy not to have the other services. But if something goes wrong people aren't happy."

Recent figures from flightontime.org show that Ryanair was the best performing low-cost airline in terms of on time departures over the early months of the year.

Between January and March 2007, 79.3 per cent of its flights left within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure times.

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