Discount Fares

It's no longer surprising for European passengers to play cut-rate prices -- sometimes under one euro ($1.30) -- for an international flight, and the discount airlines offering them, including Ryanair, Easyjet and Germanwings, have managed to take over 30 percent of air traffic market share, accounting for a large part of the increase in international traffic.

Though Pakistan, China and India are all likely to see an average passenger increase of eight percent, discount airlines make up just 10 percent of the Asian market and are tightly regulated by national governments, according to the International Air Transport Association.

While other Asian markets are only beginning to open their airports to regional competition, the airlines, including Malaysia's Air Asia X, are finding a warmer welcome in Europe.

160 euros from London to Hong Kong

Germany's Cologne/Bonn airport is particularly interested in attracting the Asia's intercontinental flights.

"Naturally we want be in a position to become the largest 'low-cost' airport in continental Europe and become a European hub for the new 'low-cost' long-distance carriers," said Michael Garvens, head of the Cologne/Bonn Airport.

Discount airline Oasis, which has offered flights from London to Hong Kong for 160 euros, is likely to offer similarly priced Cologne-Hong Kong fares this year, Garvens added.

"We have had intensive talks with Oasis for two years," he said. "It's in place. Now the only factor is how fast Oasis can get the additional airplanes."

Can cheap fares be profitable?

Still, some experts are skeptical whether the discount airlines' business model will also make a profit when it comes to long-haul flights since the low-cost model's profitability depends on keeping planes in the air, taking off again as soon as possible after an arrival.

Even though it takes longer to prepare a plane for take off after a 10-hour flight, Garvens said he can still see plenty of ways for discount airlines to make a profit with long-distance flights.

"The expensive costs for the large, worldwide reservation programs as well as lounges and mileage programs" all represent costs discounters would save, he said, adding that major airlines use profits on their intercontinental flights to make up for losses in continental profits that the discounters would not incur.

Good for the wallet, bad for the environment

However, a profusion of low-cost intercontinental flights would be a nightmare scenario for environmental protection groups.

Already critical of growing air traffic, which is a heavy contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, Sven Harmeling from Germanwatch, a group which looks at environmental issues, said measuring the exact effects air traffic has on the climate is difficult but that it is likely to make up between four and nine percent of man-made greenhouse emissions and is sharply increasing.

He also said low-cost airlines are sending the wrong signal by implying that there is little cost involved in flying anywhere and everywhere.

"We you look at the trend to introduce low-cost flights on long-distance flights, you also have to assume an increase in air traffic -- that will be an extremely big climate policy problem," he said.