A primary piece of advice for people seeking good airfares is to find out which flights have empty seats. It's fairly safe to say that the airlines aren't going to share this information with you directly.
But indirectly, they'll tell you where the seats are empty by discounting selected routes and posting "special deals," "hot deals," or some other marketing-driven offering.
To save you time in your planning, we've linked many of those special deals pages for major airlines here. Don't make the mistake of thinking the "deals" or "promotions" are strictly hype. They are worth scanning at the start of your shopping experience.
These listings are organized by continent, with European airlines listed below.
Let's start with a link page to Europe's budget airlines. This is a growing list, and it's tough to keep current because many of these bold challengers fail to survive in a brutal competitive business environment. Nonetheless, take a look at Euroflights.info for a list of budget airlines and the cities they serve within Europe.
Next, a list of larger carriers competing with the budget airlines:
Aer Lingus offers sale fares from the home page and their base in Ireland.
Air France presents its top sales on the homepage.
Alitalia from Italy usually organizes its sale fares by season.
British Airways is pushed to compete with the United Kingdom's many budget carriers. They offer a variety of special offers.
CSA is based in the Czech Republic.
Iberia is based in Spain but serves Europe and 23 American airports.
Icelandair has long been a budget favorite of people traveling between Europe and North America. They post their sale offers on the home page.
KLM is a Dutch airline that partners with Northwest Airlines. They'll link you directly to nwa.com if you say you're from North America, but the page linked here shows their deals, priced in euros.
LTU is a German airline that offers attractive fares between its home base and Toronto, Los Angeles and Miami, among others.
Lufthansa presents "Top Offers" to and from its base in Germany.
Luxembourg Airlines is well-known by budget travelers, and offers a variety of deals that get you to and from their location in the center of Western Europe.
Spanair covers Spain, 10 cities in North America and more than 30 European destinations.
Swiss International Airlines presents "destinations of the month" with sale fares to match.
Virgin Atlantic is based in the U.K. and usually links its best deals from the homepage.
Other Continents
