Flying on the cheap from Prague to Amsterdam?

January 30, 2006 2:59 PM

Discount airlines from Prague to Amsterdam....?

My plan is to fly from London to Prague to Amsterdam and back to London the week of April 9th. I'll be spending 3 nights in Prague with my friend and will then fly solo from there to Amsterdam to visit family over the Easter weekend. Does anyone know of any discount airlines that service these cities?

Smart Wings, a czech-based airline, flies this route but I haven't heard anything about them, nor was I able to find any real reviews of their service online. The flight would be just over an hour, so how bad could it be? I would assume that they would fly out to Schipol, but do not know for sure. Has anyone flown with them before? Or could recommend any other cheap options? (I don't know if going by rail would be cheaper, but it's not a real option since I only plan on being overseas for a couple weeks.)
Thanks.

posted by phoenixc to travel & transportation (11 comments total)

Discount airlines: Easyjet does the London-Prague and Amsterdam-London routes for cheap, especially if you book in advance. As for the prague-amsterdam leg of the journey, Expedia has direct flights for £308, which isn't very cheap, or ones with one stop from £269. I really would recommend going by train for that bit.
posted by Lotto at 3:10 PM on January 30, 2006

Smart Wings only does the PRG-AMS route on Fridays, as mentioned here its entire fleet consists of two 737-500s.

Take the train. It's the EuroCity, with a single change, and you can book a couchette or sleeper carriage on an overnight trip.
posted by holgate at 3:47 PM on January 30, 2006

Try SkyScanner
posted by Sharcho at 4:02 PM on January 30, 2006

Smart Wings offers exactly what you want. 2020 CZK is only 86 dollars so the price should not be too steep either. As for service, you'll probably get what you pay for, and delays are possible, but you'll get to Amsterdam on the cheap. The train would take a complete night + more time of your day than the flight does and isn't even that cheap if you wouldn't be paying for your bed anyways.
posted by insomnus at 7:08 PM on January 30, 2006

In addition to SkyScanner, AirNinja works nicely for determining what low-cost carriers fly a particular route. Unfortunately, it excludes other "mainstream" carriers, and is thus a bit incomplete.
posted by soda pop at 7:42 PM on January 30, 2006

If you really, really don't want to fly on Smart Wings, you can take Easyjet from Prague to London (Gatwick) and then from London to Amsterdam. It will cost the same, but take much longer.
posted by insomnus at 3:11 AM on January 31, 2006

i had the same itinerary a couple years ago. things change rapidly in air travel, but at that time, non-stop flights PRG-AMS were really expensive. the train was also very expensive.
what worked for me was booking all, entirely via BA. it was only a little more than the cost of a round-trip and even though the connection through heathrow sucked, it was a better connection schedule than i could get via easy-jet. have you already purchased your tickets? if not, check booking it all on BA, you might get lucky with a low fare. otherwise - the smart wings option sounds best, if you can travel friday.
posted by lapolla at 3:47 AM on January 31, 2006

oh i forgot to mention - in case it wasn't clear in the last post - the entire itin was LHR-PRG-LHR-AMS-LHR.
posted by lapolla at 3:49 AM on January 31, 2006

There seems to be some confusion. According to their website, Smart Wings flies PRG-AMS every day.
posted by insomnus at 7:34 AM on January 31, 2006

There seems to be some confusion. According to their website, Smart Wings flies PRG-AMS every day.

I stand corrected: the daily route is scheduled to begin on March 26th, for the Easter holiday, which means phoenixc is in luck.
posted by holgate at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2006

Just wanted to drop in and provide an update in case anyone is interested in flying Smart Wings in the future. It was generally alright, given that the flight was just 1hr15min. The aircraft was clean and they had assigned seating (as compared to Easyjet, which does not.) Do be aware that there may be delays and problems with misinformation, as I experienced.

My flight this morning was originally scheduled for 10:10 but when I arrived at the airport, the departure time to Amsterdam had changed to 9:45 about 20 minutes after my arrival there. I checked in and made my way over to my gate well in advance of my 9:15 boarding time. 9:15 comes and goes and no one shows up at the gate...20 minutes later, me and 20 other passengers realize that the gate had changed and so we trek down a flight of stairs to the correct gate and wait some more. 10:10, the original departure time comes and goes and still no staff at the gate--meanwhile, the screen over the desk still shows the 9:45 departure time. 10:20, 2 staff show up and we're soon allowed to board the bus that takes us to our plane.

I don't know how much of the delay/misinformation was the fault of the airline or the airport--I wasn't impressed at all with the disorganization and how understaffed they were at passport control after arriving in Prague, but that's another story. I'd probably fly them again if I took the same route but if given other options like Easyjet, I'd skip out on Smart Wings.
posted by phoenixc at 9:43 AM on April 13, 2006