Low Cost Flight Companies

Parent company of British Airways launches low-cost services from Paris to USA

A new low-cost airline is offering low-cost travel from Europe to North America. A new airline under the roof of the International Airlines Group (IAG), Level Airlines is planning to offer budget-friendly one-way services between Paris and New York City in September 2018 at just US$149 (excluding tax). The airline also intends to operate services from Paris to Montreal, Guadeloupe and Martinique.

These shareholdings have recently come under intense commercial pressures with the recent growth of new long-haul low-cost airlines such as Norwegian and Wow, both of which have recently launched their budgetary services from Europe to the US. IAG' s response to this contest is Level. The airline heralded the launch of the Barcelona-based company in March, with a restricted long-haul base and marketed to price-conscious, younger travellers.

Offering naked bones, a la card services like its competitors, the carrier also provides low fares and a minimum of partnership advantages with IAG airlines. Even more important, Level's launch will also allow UK, Iberian and other legacies carrier companies in IAG's global distribution chain to concentrate on a larger customer base.

As well as the new services from Paris, Level also announces that it will launch a new route from its Barcelona to Boston hubs in March 2018. In spite of the aggressiveness of the expansion, Paris' services are at the expense of the customer. With Level from France expanding, IAG has said it will be dropping OpenSkies, another IAG-branded product aimed at high-end travellers.

Founded in 2008, the airline now flies between Paris and the USA in luxury staterooms. However, as many operators providing similar services have shown, the all-business classical (or near all-business classical) approach has proven challenging to achieve sustainable profitability. Level will take over the arrival and departures times in Paris, which were once run by the premier airline, as open skies sundowns.

However, if the new vehicle finds its feet in France, it may encounter more opposition than in Spain. SkyTeam Air France, British Airways' competitor in the SkyTeam airline alliances, has a chokehold on most outside Paris while at the beginning of the year it set up its own Joon budgetary company.

However, the level's extension into new marketplaces is a sign that the IAG and the remainder of the existing fellowship are ready to take budgetary travels seriously.