Spendthrift Shoestring

Germanwings's Half-Million Cheap Tickets

Today through Sunday August 30, Germanwings is selling off 500,000 tickets priced at just €19.99 apiece. This sale fare includes taxes. Not included: checked luggage surcharge & transaction fee. The latter runs €8 per payment.

These fares apply to Germanwings' entire route map, and are good for travel from September 6 through March 27, 2010.

The Germanwings route map is distinctive for a few reasons. The airline serves the former Yugoslavia more comprehensively than any other low-cost carrier. Also impressive are its routes to Turkish cities, Kiev, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.

English-language search engine here.

Sarajevo Gets More Cheap Flights

More ahead-of-the-curve activity from Germanwings. At the end of June, the German low-cost carrier announced that they'd start flying between Cologne/Bonn and Sarajevo in August. Flycheapo spent some time with the airline's 2008-2009 schedule and reports today that the airline will also be connecting Stuttgart and Sarajevo from late October on.

Sarajevo is an absolute star of a city. Its rich layers of culture and history and unique atmosphere make it an extraordinarily special place. When Marisa and I visited in May, I kept thinking about the relative dearth of tourists. Back in London, I blabbed to whoever would listen about the city and wondered out loud why Sarajevo hadn't made it onto a shortlist of weekend break destinations for Londoners. One British friend said, in his typically understated way: "It may have something to do with the fact that it was a war zone not long ago." But Bosnian War hostilities ended almost thirteen years ago.

Sarajevo is ripe for greater numbers of tourists. If another low-cost carrier or two were to jump on the Germanwings bandwagon, the city might begin to receive its tourism due.

Germanwings to Kyiv

I forecasted this one, however tentatively, back in December! Germanwings will fly from Berlin and Cologne/Bonn to Kyiv beginning in October. Thanks to Air Scoop for the buzz.