Kiwis flock to European No Frills Travel Site

Kiwis flock to European No Frills Travel Site.

Despite the weakness of the NZ Dollar against the Euro, thousands of Kiwis will travel to the Europe this summer.

Rather than traveling around Europe by train, many travellers from New Zealand are taking advantage of this years huge price war between low fares carriers within Europe to avail of bargain flights within Europe.

The number one company providing these cheap flights to Kiwis is actually based in Ireland; Openjet Limited, operator of www.openjet.com

There has been significant growth in the no frills air travel market in Europe over the past few years led by companies such as RyanAir and EasyJet and newcomers such as bmibaby MyTravelLite, Volareweb, Basiqair, HLX and Germanwings and this trend looks set to continue. Low fares airlines now serve over 180 European airports and as the network of connections continues to grow more customers will travel across Europe using two or more low fares connections.

Designed for ultimate ease of use, the openjet.com site lets you compare, combine and book low-cost tickets with the low-cost airlines. It does the work for you.

"The unique offering on openjet.com provides a new service to meet the needs of the growing number of Kiwis who wish to book flights with European No Frills airlines. For travellers who wish to make multi-sector, or single sector journeys on one or more of the No Frills airlines within Europe, the openjet.com solution provides an easy and convenient way to identify and book the lowest cost option," commented Pat O'Shea.

As European Low Cost carriers seek to gain market share to impress stock markets, profits have been set-aside for 2004, and some carriers are selling below cost. This has created fierce competition between the budget carriers with Europe, fares such as London to Barcelona, Paris to Milan, or Amsterdam to Venice can be booked for as little as NZ$30 plus taxes each way. One ways, quite popular with NZ users, don't cost any more than half the return fare on openjet.com, and fares can be quoted in major international currencies.

All bookings are processed via the website, no paper tickets are provided, you simply get an e-ticket with a confirmation code by email which allows you to check in.

"At present the European No Frills airlines which can be booked through openjet.com are Easyjet, bmibaby, MyTravelLite, Volareweb, Basiqair, HLX and Germanwings, however to further enhance the service we provide we will be adding to this list in the near future," says Pat O'Shea, of Openjet.

"Many of Openjet's NZ users are backpackers & students where cost is paramount, but we also get a number of corporate users," added O'Shea, "to keep within the budgets of all of the website users openjet users can also choose accommodation that ranges from Hostels, Hotels and Holiday Villas. European Car Hire is also available at a competitive price. Once you get to Europe openjet is your one stop shop for travel needs."

"Another cost saving tactic that has been used by some NZ travellers is to find the lowest cost flight to any point in Europe and use one of these No Frills airlines to fly to your final destination. For example, let's say you want to fly from Auckland to Barcelona, Spain The cost of a roundtrip flight from Auckland to Barcelona is NZ$2000 but you find a special from Auckland to London, UK or Amsterdam for NZ$1000. Fly to London or Amsterdam for NZ$1000 and then use a No Frills carrier from openjet.com to fly return Barcelona for NZ$200. This gives you a savings of NZ$800," says O'Shea, who founded openjet, the European No Frills airlines solution provider, openjet in 2002, "One word of warning, when using this tactic, most no frills carriers use secondary airports. For example, nearly all NZ incoming flights to London fly into Heathrow and most low-cost carriers fly out of London's other airports like Stansted, Gatwick, and Luton. So leave at least 5 to 6 hours between your incoming NZ flights, and your onward European No Frills flight, as you will have to transfer by bus, train or taxi between the airport. Should you have any questions on this, just pop us an email to info@openjet.com and we'd be more than happy to help."

Notes for Editors:

Openjet Limited is a provider of Internet bookings on low cost European carriers. Openjet is independent ad privately owned. The website (www.openjet.com) allows consumers to search and book flights from a growing number of airlines Easyjet, BMIBaby (Subsidiary of British Midland International), Mytravellite (Part of the MyTravel group), Volareweb, HLX (part of the TUI travel group), Germanwings (co-owned by Lufthansa) and Basiqair (subsidiary of KLM).

Openjet Ltd. is a Cork (Ireland) based company set up in 2002 by Pat O'Shea and Eamon Curtin. The company has been funded by private investment from Northern Ireland company, Nova RentaCar Reservations Ltd, Portaferry, Co. Down and Republic of Ireland company, Slatterys Travel, Tralee, Co. Kerry as well as an equity grant from Cork City Enterprise Board. The website was designed by Cork company Rocket Media, www.rocketmedia.ie . The technology was developed by OpenJaw Technologies Ltd., Dublin, http://www.openjawtech.com

Contacts:

Pat O'Shea Managing Director OPENJET LTD. 14, Penrose Wharf Cork City, Ireland

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