Low-cost airlines shake up market for long haul flights

Low-cost, long-haul air travel has taken off across the Atlantic, shaking a club of major airlines meeting in Mexico this week and forcing established flag carriers to set up budget subsidiaries or lower fares. Transatlantic routes are among the industry's most popular and profitable, and budget carriers are trying to grab a slice of that business by boosting capacity on them by 68% this summer, according to data from air travel intelligence company OAG. A looming fare war has gained fresh momentum from lightweight new planes with fresh, appealing interiors that help to keep costs down. Norwegian Air Shuttle and Icelandic rival Wow have grabbed headlines with fares as low as $69 and $55 this summer, although Wow's flights involve a stop in Reykjavik. Legacy carriers are not idly standing by, and executives said they were confident their plans to offer low-cost long-haul flights would succeed. "Disrupters such as Norwegian Air Shuttle and AirAsia X have shaken up the airline market and forced scheduled operators to rethink their transatlantic strategies," Euromonitor travel project manager Nadejda Popova said. Lufthansa's Eurowings budget carrier is in its second year of long-haul flying, while Air France is planning to launch a lower-cost long haul brand this fall in a project dubbed Boost. "It confirms our decision that others are following," Lufthansa CE Carsten Spohr said, adding that the German carrier would not have invested in Eurowings without the potential for profit.<br/>