Low-cost carriers (LCC) have become a popular alternative to traditional scheduled airlines over the last two decades. Check out to find top 20 low cost airlines.

The emergence of the budget aviation market for passenger transport and freight has had a transformative effect on the way in which people travel for leisure and work.

The low-cost model focuses on business and operational practices that reduce airline costs. That means using secondary airports (with lower taxes), offering no frills on the flight and charging for services like seat reservation and checked-in baggage.

LCC typically used to fly short-haul routes so that they could return to their home base at night, and thus avoid hangarage and other costs. However, this is gradually changing; for instance, low-cost airline LEVEL (from the IAG Group) has started long-haul flights from Barcelona to North and South America.

Moreover, while sticking to single-aisle aircraft this market segment has a preference for aircraft with more seats (median of 150 seats vs 137 seats for the traditional scheduled segment) and usually a single aircraft type (e.g. Ryanair: B737-800 aircraft), which helps lower MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) costs and improves crew flexibility.

Visiongain’s report analyses the leading 20 companies providing this vital service and reveals their competitive positioning.

This are the Top 20 Low Cost Carrier (LCC) Companies: low cost airlines

• Jetblue
  • Jetstar Airways
  • Norwegian
  • Pal Express
  • Ryanair
  • Southwest Airlines
  • Spirit Airlines
  • Vueling Airlines
  • WestJet
  • Wizz Air

The five European countries with most low-cost traffic are the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. However, Spain (excluding the Canary Islands) is the only country where LCCs are more popular than traditional scheduled; in the other countries, the traditional scheduled segment is still in the majority.