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Date Published: 26/08/2026

This is the cheapest airline for flying around Europe and it's not Spanish

Spanish carriers Iberia and Vueling both rank among Europe's ten most expensive airlines, according to new data

The cheapest airline for flying around Europe isn't one of the big names regularly seen at Spanish airports, it's Wizz Air. The Hungarian carrier has topped AirAdvisor's ranking for the third year running, and this time two of Spain's best known airlines have ended up among the priciest in Europe instead.

Wizz Air finished 2025 with a RASK, or Revenue per Available Seat Kilometre, of 4.33 cents, almost a full cent cheaper than the airline in second place. It might not sound like much, but it adds up quickly. On an average European route of 1,157km, according to Eurocontrol, that extra cent can end up costing passengers the price of an entire second ticket.

EasyJet came in next at 5.21 cents, followed by Ryanair at 5.56 cents. Ryanair saw the biggest shift of any airline on the list, dropping from 8.43 cents a year ago to 5.56 cents now, a fall of 2.87 cents that AirAdvisor estimates works out to a saving of around €33 per passenger on a typical flight. EasyJet's prices dropped too, down 2.49 cents, while Wizz Air actually crept up slightly from 4.17 to 4.33 cents, though it held on to top spot regardless.

Spain's two major airlines had a very different year. Iberia came in eighth across Europe at 7.08 cents, with sister airline Vueling rounding out the top ten at 7.49 cents, meaning Spain's flag carrier is technically earning less per seat than its own low-cost counterpart within the IAG group.

That comparison needs a bit of context though. RASK is calculated by dividing annual passenger revenue by total seating capacity sold, and while it captures what passengers actually pay, including extras like baggage, seat selection and priority boarding, it also tends to fall automatically on longer routes, since the same revenue gets spread across more kilometres.

Iberia mostly flies long haul routes to Latin America, while Vueling operates short European hops of two or three hours, so industry consultants say the comparison says more about each airline's business model than about which one is genuinely cheaper to fly.

At the other end of the scale, Norway's Widerøe came out as the most expensive airline in Europe at 32 cents, a regional carrier serving small Nordic airports where competition is limited and planes are smaller. That's a gap of 27.67 cents compared with Wizz Air, which AirAdvisor says could add up to €350 per passenger on a single flight. Among the bigger airlines, British Airways was the most expensive at 8.88 cents, and was one of only a handful, alongside KLM, Air France and SAS, to actually raise its fares this year.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Archive

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