I'm planning a trip to London in the fall and wanted to explore France, Spain, or Italy while there. Does anyone know the cheapest way to catch a flight between these cities?

Try ryanair or easyjet.
They have great prices.

And Volareweb

And Virgin-express , too.

Easyjet, http://www.easyjet.com, ++44 870 6 000 000, fly from Luton, Stansted and Gatwick to Spain and from Geneva to Paris Orly
Volare, http://w3.volareweb.com/en/index.html fly from Bilbao and Brindisi to Milan, from Brindisi to Venice, and from Madrid to Venice, Valencia, Palma, Corsica, Lampedusa, and Catania
Alpi Eagles http://www.alpieagles.com/fly from Naples to Barcelona and from Venice toVerona, Rome, Cagliari, Lampedusa, Catania
Ryanair, http://www.ryanair.ie, ++44 870 156 9569, fly from Stansted, Luton and Gatwick to France and Spain
You can make most of these journeys in your sleep if you book a railway sleeping car.

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And
www.air-berlin.de
www.aerolloyd.de

Germany to everywhere

Or you could consolidate your search on one website:
www.skyscanner.net
All the budget airlines, and if none available for the cities you want, it will tell you which major airlines fly that particular route.

Thanks so much for the great advice--I'm gonna get busy surfing!

CHEAP EUROPEAN AIRLINES
Ryanair www.ryanair.com
Buzz www.buzzaway.com
Air Berlin www.airberlin.com
Virgin Express www.virgin-express.com
Germanwings www.germanwings.com
Hapag-Lloyd Express www.hlx.com
EasyJet www.easyjet.com
Brnibaby www.brnibaby.com

Try this one too: Europe by Air.

http://www.europebyair.com/eba/map/default.jsp

One more site that groups many (but not all) of the budget airlines for travel within Europe is applefares.com

For frequent flyer:
www.skyscanner.net did not find London to Bratislava, the service of SkyEurope, and did not find Brindisi, the services of Volare.

For happy tourist:
Your list omits both SkyEurope and Volare, and I expect others

For lesli:
I like your restraint when you say many but not all

For all:
Which leaves the question, is there a site that covers all no-frills airlines in Europe ? For my part I doubt it, but it will be useful if it exists.

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Thank you--this is so helpful. One more question...we are arriving at London Heathrow and need an inter-European flight from there. In my search so far, I have only seen good fares from other London airports (which require at least an hour transfer--none easy). Does anyone have any good recommendations of catching a good, inexpensive flight from Heathrow--or an easy route to one of the outlaying airports?

bmi or bmibaby has some flights from LHR, and virgin-express.com flies to Brussels at least.

The bus ride from LHR to STN is quite painless - - an excellent 75 minute nap if you have an early morning LHR arrival. Costs about 15 GBP, though this might be out of date pricing.

Best wishes,

Rex

I think you will find no cheap flights from Heathrow. It is a big airport, and charges airlines big fees to use it.

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I'm planning to fly between London and Paris in October. EasyJet has round trip fair of 38.31 GBP or I can get Air France for $107. Is EasyJet considered reliable and safe? And where the heck is London Luton -- I'm having trouble finding it on my map.

Of course, there's also Eurostar for 59 GBP and I do know where Waterloo is.

The airlines are safe! Luton is on the FAR south east side of Greater London.

I would take Eurostar in lieu of the plane. Because:

There will be a lot of time and hassle to get to and from the airports in Paris and London. Plus added expense of those transfers.

Eurostar takes you from city center to city center.

BMI offers a very reasonable flight to Venice from London Heathrow. We found a one-way flight for less than $60 pp, including all taxes.

Crispin's finger is probably just slipping, but for the avoidance of doubt:
- Luton is on the North West side of London. It's roughly 27 miles from Trafalgar Sq (the normal UK zero point). That's a few miles further than LHR, and little more than a few yards further than LGW. It has direct trains to central London, and several points on the way (OK, you have to get a shuttle from the terminal, but it's still a lot easier to get to central London from Luton by public transport than to get to central New York from JFK or Newark)

The "Luton's in the middle of nowhere" belief is a piece of English snobbery based largely on the fact than many Brits are spectacularly ignorant of their own country's geography.

All London's airports - even City - are more or less equally inconvenient if you're starting off from the tourist ghetto and want to get to central Paris.

Thank you so much for all the advice. We were able to find a reasonable flight from Heathrow on BMI.