The United States leads in terms of the largest concentration of low-cost airlines, with more than 395 million seats. Next comes India with 147 million seats, Spain with 108 million seats, China with 98 million seats, and Italy with 85 million low-cost seats.
According to an analysis of over two billion incoming airline destinations on a global scale conducted by Mabrian, shared among 173 airlines, accounting for 36 per cent of all internationally scheduled seats worldwide, the US, India, Spain, China and Italy have the cheapest flights, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Meanwhile, low-cost carriers Southwest, Ryanair, Indigo, Easyjet, and Spirit take centre stage in the seat volume ranking.
By geographic region, within Europe, Mabrian shows that the nations that experience the highest inflow of low-cost inbound flights and, therefore, exhibit a greater reliance on these budget airlines include Latvia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Belgium, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary, and Macedonia.
In each of these countries, the percentage of low-cost flights exceeds 70 per cent.
“The countries with the largest population (apart from China), India, Mexico and Brazil, all have low-cost penetration with more than 60 per cent share. The reason is that the phenomenon of low cost has allowed carriers to compete with the bus and train networks,” a renowned international consultant specialising in aviation and tourism Gavin Eccles from GE Consulting noted.
Based on Mabrian’s analysis, among the regions with a high prevalence of low-cost flights in Asia, more than 60 per cent of all inbound flights are recorded in:
- India
- Afghanistan
- Kazakhstan
- Tajikistan.
As for Africa, the countries receiving the most inbound low-cost flights include Liberia, Togo, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Gabon, with a percentage of low-cost countries higher than 52 per cent, thus reaching 64.25 per cent.
Moreover, Mabrian found that within the Pacific, the country that gets the most low-cost flights is Australia, with 46 per cent. On the other hand, in countries like New Zealand, Palau and Fiji, the percentage of low-cost airlines is very low.
Mexico also stands out as the country with the highest percentage of low-cost flights in North America, over 60 per cent. Meanwhile, the United States registers a share of only 33.7 per cent of these flights.
As the Mabrian points out, Puerto Rico exceeds a level of 50 per cent of low-cost flights in the Caribbean and Central America. However, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti are above 40 per cent.
In addition, Brazil occupies the place with the most considerable prevalence of low-cost inbound links in South America, with a share of 60 per cent, and Chile comes second in the ranking, having a share of less than four per cent.
