British Airways is challenging the low-cost carriers by announcing five million bargain tickets to 80 European destinations in a special children-go-free offer.
The airline is offering £69 tickets to such cities as Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona and Madrid.
A child aged up to 12 can go free, except for airport tax, with each adult ticket on European routes.
Tickets will be on sale for 10 days from tomorrow, and will be available for travel until the end of March, 2002, including half-term and Christmas holidays.
Other tickets are priced at £89 and include destinations such as Munich, Rotterdam and Dublin. Tickets priced at £109 include Bordeaux, Nice and Oslo.
The top-priced tickets in the special offer are £189 and include the Russian cities of Moscow and St Petersburg.
BA's worldwide sales director Mr Dale Moss says: "This is great news for parents, as there are tens of thousands of free kids' seats on offer.
"This is just the start of a series of promotional campaigns to boost business on our network."
While low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet have ridden out the post-September 11th aviation crisis by lowering fares, BA had resisted fare cuts... until now.
But the airline has seen passenger numbers dip and has had to announce big job losses, a pay freeze and scrapping of some routes.
PA