Once just a pie in the sky dream for the masses, air travel is now an affordably integral part of life. Unlimited "limited offers" make flying as cheap as bus travel. But a new report suggests the heyday is almost over.
Say what you will about Michael O'Leary and his Irish discount airline, Ryanair, there is no getting away from the fact that he will go down in history as an aviation trend-setter.
In dispensing with the luxury and frills of flying, he was scorned by the likes of major-league elitist players such as British Airways and Lufthansa, but that didn't stop him from opening the skies to millions of mortal Europeans and spawning a whole fleet of airlines eager to follow his lead. Now the taunting has stopped.
There are some 65 discount airlines, 15 of them in Germany, whose paths now cross mid-air as they make their daily runs to destinations all over the continent.
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