Low costs prevailing against national carriers In the passenger battle between budget carriers and full-service airlines, the low-costs seem to be flying higher. EasyJet just announced quarterly revenue up 9.2 percent boosted by more business travellers and additional flights on routes where rivals have reduced capacity. It also benefited from extra services, such as flexible tickets and allocated seating, that it is now offering to try and steal business customers from national flag carriers. Several airlines - including Scandinavian group SAS, Germany's Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, and IAG's Spanish carrier Iberia - have already cut thousands of jobs as they struggle with high fuel costs, weak consumer confidence and the eurozone crisis. Europe's largest budget airline, Ryanair, meanwhile is expanding its longer-distance flights and just announced new routes from Italy to North Africa. Ryanair plans to increased its annual capacity to 120 million passengers in 2022 from around 80 million today. More about: Airlines, Europe, Market results