Aussies have cheapest airfares

Australia’s airlines have been ranked as offering the cheapest airfares in the world on a per kilometer basis. Rome2rio, a Melbourne based global travel search company that scans 750,000 routes for air, rail, coach, and ferry service from 4800 operators found that Tigerair ranked the world's cheapest closely followed by Jetstar. The average fare charged by Tigerair was just US$0.06/km (A$0.08) while Jetstar was US$0.09, Virgin Australia and Qantas US$0.11/km. See Tigerair's product rankings The Air Asia Group also figured prominently with Air Asia X, second cheapest at US$0.07/km and Indonesia AirAsia US$0.08/km The company said that it “based its airline price comparison on economy-class airfares displayed by Rome2rio in January and February 2018.” Rome2rio said the big stand-out in the results was Singapore based Scoot which “is no longer one of the cheapest carriers, dropping dramatically in our international rankings from 1 in 2016 to 31 in 2018.” WATCH: Scary take-off  Scoot’s average ticket price jumped from US$0.07 to US$0.12 over the two years. However, it points out that “this may be due to the Tiger/Scoot merge in 2017 and the separation off of the Tiger brand in Australia, which now exists under different ownership.” Other notable airlines that offered the lowest fares were, Qatar and Etihad at US$0.10/km and Emirates slightly more expensive at $0.11/km. By way of stark contrast, the most expensive airlines were in Nepal where Yeti Airlines charged US$1.08/km and Buddha Air US$1.18. Those fares reflect the very short distances, small aircraft, and flying conditions. The survey highlights the very high cost of short haul flights. For example, Korea Air’s domestic fare costs is US$0.60/km, whereas its international fare cost is $US0.14 - 76 percent lower. A similar case is found in New Zealand with Air New Zealand where it operates many short sectors in small aircraft and the cost is $US0.42/km but the cost on its international network is 73 percent lower at US$0.11/km, which is one of the lowest. Cheapest US carriers were Spirit at US$0.13/km, Virgin America and Frontier at $US0.14/km. Southwest was much higher at US$0.29km reflecting much shorter sectors. Ryanair was $0.10/km but Easyjet was US$0.19/km.