The idea of ​​entering the world of full cost airlines at low prices is not new. Already in 1977 Laker Airways founded the “Sky Train” between London and New York. Although this service was never successful, in the course of the deregulation process more and more low-cost airlines were founded and the development of their own low-cost strategy began. If today we take a look at the home pages of low-cost airlines we cannot help but say that almost all of them are operating successfully despite the problems of September 11, 2001, SARS in 2002 and the war in Iraq in 2003. Southwest, for example, it showed positive net income for the period 1990 to 2002 (Appendix A) and is no. . 5 of America's Most Admired Companies in 2005 (Homepage). Ryan Air also managed to increase the number of passengers it carried from 5,000 in 1985 to 24,635,000 in 2004 (Appendix B). The success of low-cost airlines has had important competitive effects on the main full-cost airlines, many of which have reacted to the new competitor by founding their own "low-cost carrier", i.e. United Shuttle, Continental Lite, Delta Express, Germanwings and so on. away. But what makes low-cost carriers so unbeaten? In this essay I would like to demonstrate some of the key success factors that have made airlines such as easyJet, Ryan Air and Southwest so successful. First of all it must be said that there is no single low cost strategy, it is more that each airline has its own concept, so the service offered varies between No Frills-Airlines and "quality airlines with lower prices". Furthermore, the idea of ​​differentiation has also entered the low-cost airline market recently as competition in this market grows. However, there are some basic characteristics that every low-cost airline has: destinations similar to full-cost airlines cost structures similar to charter airlines a new concept of product and service concentration on the price factor (Pompl, 2002) The main purpose of Low-cost airlines with these characteristics can obtain a significant cost advantage in order to reduce the ticket prices of full-cost carriers by almost 50%. Therefore it is necessary to introduce several new concepts in route management, operations, distribution and service management. Let's take a closer look at the concepts and thus the key success factors of low-cost airlines: Flight plan: Low-cost airlines mainly fly in the short- and medium-haul market.