New Intern Tips – How to find cheap outbound flights from good ol’ Prahahaha

Surprisingly given its touristy status and central location Prague isn’t that cheap or convenient to get in and out of compared to other major European cities. Prague Ruzyne Airport’s Terminal 2 just started running last year to diverge flights to Schengen states from those to non-Schengen states. For a good reason it’s natural to have the itch to get away from pivo intoxication once in a while for a break. Therefore it’s an FAQ where one can find a good deal for flights going out of Prague.

Walking around you can probably find loads of travel agency offices along the road side or their posters in metro stations or on buses. However my personal observation is that they are good at organized tours but not necessarily good flight/hotel offers. If you don’t mind having them arrange/plan/ruin your travels, then go for it. Some Agencies would offer good packages for flight + hotel + self-tour. If there’s someone who’s traveled with them and have comments please feel free to share.

My focus this New Intern Tips episode will only be on flight booking.

Student Agency
My personal No.1 choice. They have only Czech and Slovak pages, no other languages. Most people give up right at the homepage and quit browsing altogether. Now, tip No.1 for finding good deals: don’t be lazy. Work on your Czech a little bit more or use some external help. It’ll be worth it. With a bit of help from THE dictionary, it’s not so hard to remember “letenka” means “air ticket”. Click that tab you see a search engine page and then everything will just flow as well as it does in all language. How hard is it to figure out where to input cities and dates? You might have problems finding out different country names in Czech. But the majority of the county names are similar to English. There are a few exceptions but again, use the dictionary and common sense it’s not difficult at all.
Example 1: With your basic knowledge of Czech being a phonetic language, you know you should find Canada as Kanada in “K” section instead of poking your eyes out around “C” section. Props to Claire for demonstrating and offering the example.
Example 2: If you can order a velky pivo (large beer), you won’t have problem understanding UK will happen to be Velka Britanie, so go dig it in “V” part. Etc etc.

[Update] Student Agency now finally has an English tab for flight ticket searching. Well done.

Tip No.2, with Student Agency, it’s suggested to reserve it online, because they charge an extra few hundred crowns for buying it straight from their office without online reservation. Not worth it. Thanks Claire again for demonstrating and offering the example.

With Student Agency you can either pay online or choose to reserve it online and pay cash when they deliver the tickets or go pick up the ticket yourself at their offices. All their receptionists speak good English. Handy.

Asiana
Uses almost the same search engine as Student Agency does, which means you can basically find the same deal as Student Agency. Not 100% same since there will be some slight differences ine seat availability, but I’d say more than 90% of my searches return with the same schedule and prices from both sites.

Big advantage of this website over Student Agency, is that they have ENGLISH webpage. Score!

On the flip side though, disadvantage #1 of Asiana is that they don’t issue e-tickets. So you have to deal with the risk of losing your paper ticket. But with a little caution this obstacle shall be overcome. Disadvantage #2 is that their searching and browsing page is less convenient and user-friendly than Student Agency. Student Agency has more efficient layout and the results are easier to read, compare and choose. Asiana will probably need to work on this one.

Sky Scanner
Search hub for budget airlines in Europe. This is your best friend if you like bouncing around Europe with cheap flights. Bear in mind that they are mainly European budget airlines with limited destinations, so don’t be pissed off when you keep failing finding the exotic airport/city you want to get to. Also beware of their limit of hand luggage and also strict and early check-in closing time.

Other budget airlines
You are probably very familiar with the main budget flight carriers in Europe, eg Sky Europe, Easy Jet, or Ryan Air. But for outbound flight from Prague you probably should stick with Sky Europe. FYI they just opened their line from Prague to Greece a month ago (!). Jet 2 and Bmibaby have some good deals too. Worth mentioning is that Smart Wings is right only Czech budget airline and it isn’t too shabby actually. For budget airlines going out of Europe try Which Budget which is another budget flight search engine.

Of course there is another option going out which is fly out from neighboring large cities. There are probably a lot more and cheaper flights flying out from Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, and Vienna. All you need to do is to be wiling to sit your ass on the bus/train for a few hours to get to these places.

If you have other suggestions/information/experiences on this topic, please share. Thanks.

PS. It will also be useful to keep in mind the new EU Aviation Security Act against liquid explosives when you are packing. Find the links here to the guide, the act, and the Q&A.


[Update 2] There is a new low cost airline (kind of) based in Prague....Click4Sky

They buy the unfilled seats from CSA and then sell them for 1990Kc each way, including taxes and other charges...and the price never changes. The only annoying thing is that you have to buy a return ticket, they don't let you buy one-way. Still they have some really good prices and destinations...so I thought you'd like to know!

Thanks Alex!

[Update 3] Aibek has now a cool list of budget airlines connecting Prague. Thanks Aibek!