Budget air fares make a reality of one Europe - by Vernon Silver
Andrzej Majewski, a Pole who works as a thoracic surgeon in England, catches a ride to the airport in Wroclaw on Sundays and hops a Ryanair flight to his hospital in Nottingham. Most Fridays he commutes home to southwest Poland. The flights cost him about $70 each way. "It takes about three hours and I'm eating lunch at my house," he says. Dublin-based Ryanair, Europe's biggest budget airline, and its main rivals, EasyJet and Air Berlin, are drawing a new map of how people and money travel in Europe. Fares as low as €1 ($1.85) plus tax encourage workers to jump borders for jobs, pump up real estate prices in France and - to the horror of residents of towns newly served by the carriers - spur British bachelors to shop for cheap beer and strippers in Prague and Riga, in Latvia.
No-frills airlines also let Europeans seek cut-rate health care in Malta, Poland and Spain. An implant and crown that cost $4600 in Britain go for $2600 in Poland.
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