Sometimes notoriously bad, but certainly cheaper and often even better than legacy airlines, the budget / low cost airline has revolutionized travel for many parts of the world.
Through the 1990s, forget it if you wanted a cheap way to travel within Europe or Asia. Then airlines like Ryanair that followed the idea of Southwest Airlines (but lacks the positive customer service that Southwest Airlines is known for) made traveling within Europe not only cheap, but easy.


Before airlines like Easyjet and Air Berlin, traveling within Europe was really expensive - usually based on mileage. Asia experienced similar changes.

In North America, Southwest Airlines leads the pack, but there are now many more options than there were 10 years ago.