It had to happen. You can now fly around the world entirely on low-cost airlines.

Last week, Zoom Airlines announced it will be launching low-cost flights between New York and London; and, from July, Oasis Airlines is planning to start flights from Hong Kong to Oakland, California. Together, these provide the final links in the cheap-flight chain that now encircles the planet.

Before you throw up your hands in horror at the thought of circumnavigating the globe Ryanair-style, remember that low-cost needn’t mean no-frills. Most long-haul low-costs offer free meals and decent in-flight entertainment. There’s also no scrum for a seat — they’re allocated at check-in. Perhaps most surprisingly, there’s no scrimping on the seat pitch either — Oasis has 32in in economy, compared with 31in on British Airways.

And most important, they mean you’ll end up with a serious bargain. For example, you could bag a fantastic trip from London to Hong Kong, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York and back to London for an all-in fare of little more than £500. A similar route would cost at least £1,400 using British Airways and its chums in the Oneworld alliance.

At first, the £500 round-the-worlder will be limited to a small range of cities. You’ll fly Oasis Airlines (www.oasishongkong.com) from Gatwick to Hong Kong for £150 (including taxes), then pay Oasis another £150 to hop on to Oakland — just across the bay from San Francisco’s main airport. From there, fly to Las Vegas and then on to New York with JetBlue (www.jetblue.com; from £125). From New York, it’s back to Gatwick with Zoom (www.flyzoom.com; from £129). That trip comes in at about £550, but cut out Vegas — or fly back via Toronto instead of New York, using WestJet (www.westjet.com) — and you’re down to £500.

For now, it’s fiddly to include Australia, but it is possible, particularly if you’ve got a bit of time on your hands. Fly Oasis to Hong Kong, then Jetstar (www.jetstar.com) from Hong Kong to Singapore, to Cairns, to Sydney, to Honolulu (phew). From there, fly with ATA (www.ata.com) to San Francisco for £100, and then take the above route back to London via New York. That epic trip will set you back about £950, all-in.

And this is only the beginning. The low-cost carriers (LCCs) are just getting into their stride, and the fun will really start in a few more months. Oasis is already looking beyond Oakland, plotting to link Hong Kong with Chicago, and then perhaps Los Angeles, Toronto and New York. And in Malaysia, AirAsia X is ordering new, large aircraft as it eyes up London and Manchester from its Kuala Lumpur base.

Then there is Kingfisher Airlines in India, the first low-cost to buy the new long-haul Airbus A380 superjumbo. Strip away space-hogging business-class seats, and the giant double-deckers can carry a mind-boggling 800 economy-class passengers — a sure-fire recipe for tumbling long-haul fares.

Even if you aren’t going to Phileas Fogg it around the planet, it’s still worth knowing how the low-costers within each region can help you build a more exciting (and cheaper) holiday. Their branding may sound silly — names such as One-Two-Go and Mango hardly inspire confidence — but the fares, from 30p one-way from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi with AirAsia, are pretty ludicrous, too. Here is our region-by-region guide.

- Unless stated, all sample fares include taxes, surcharges and fees

AUSTRALASIA

The key players: the first brave attempt at a cheap-fare challenge to the dastardly duopoly of Qantas and Ansett came from Compass, launched in 1990. It soon collapsed, broadsided in a bitter price war. Then, in 2000, Virgin Blue (www.virginblue.com.au) took the Branson brand to Oz, setting up alongside Jetstar (www.jetstar.com). Both now have excellent coverage across Australia, with domestic fares from just £16. Virgin Blue also flies to the Pacific islands, and Jetstar is introducing routes into Asia — to Bangkok, Bali, Phuket, and others. Meanwhile, Skywest (www.skywest.com.au) is the one to watch on the west coast, hopping from Perth to Broome, saving you the trouble of the spectacular but flat-tyre-prone Gibb River Road.

Between Australia and New Zealand, Freedom Air (www.freedomair.co.nz) crisscrosses the Tasman Sea with some very cheap flights — from just £66 one-way. It is now in fierce competition with Jetconnect (book through www.qantas.co.nz) and Jetstar. The best plan: use an open-jaw ticket to get to and from Australia or New Zealand, then hop about for peanuts using the LCCs. Plan a side-trip from Sydney to an exotic Pacific island — perhaps Fiji, Tonga or Samoa — from about £200 return. And it pays to be creative when crossing the Tasman: instead of flying from Sydney to Auckland, consider more unusual routes, such as Brisbane to Christchurch or Melbourne to Dunedin, which can be cheaper and increase your options for exploring.

INDIA

The key players: launched in 2003, India’s first LCC was Air Deccan (www.flyairdeccan.net), and its early success in undercutting high domestic fares and cutting out the byzantine fare rules has inspired more than a dozen imitators. Good carriers to look out for include SpiceJet (www.spicejet.com), GoAir (www.goair.in), and IndiGo Airlines (www.goindigo.in) — the last of which has rattled the competition and thrilled Indian bargain-hunters by ordering 100 new Airbuses.

You can fly no-frills to more than 50 Indian destinations, but it is Kingfisher (www.flykingfisher.com) that has pioneered seat-back TVs and put in an order for Airbus A380 superjumbos. Expect its white-suited chairman and beer-label livery to appear in London before long.

Later this year, Sri Lanka will get its first pair of low-cost carriers, Mihin Air (www.mihinlanka.com) and Holiday Air (www.holidayair.lk). You can then bypass the Sri Lankan full-frills bottleneck by bagging a cheaper flight to India, then hopping over to the island low-cost. The best plan: you can now tour the Golden Triangle cities, Delhi to Agra to Jaipur, then dodge the dusty six-hour drive back to Delhi by flying to the tropical beaches of Goa — one-way fares from Jaipur start from £30 with Kingfisher, Air Deccan or SpiceJet. Or catch a charter to Goa (Thomsonfly has returns from just £299 from Birmingham, Manchester or Gatwick), and use LCCs to hop from there to the southern temple cities or the northern Mogul towns.

Another option is to use Air Deccan to link a trip to Darjeeling and the eastern Himalayas with the Andaman Islands — the connection costs as little as £200, nonstop from Calcutta or Chennai (Madras).

THE FAR EAST

The key players: Singapore’s first LCCs launched in 2004, and immediately began buying planes and slashing fares right across the region. The main players now are Tiger Airways (www.tigerairways.com) and Jetstar Asia Airways (www.jetstarasia.com). Across the border in Malaysia, AirAsia (www.airasia.com) has brought super-cheap flying to Borneo and the tropical islands of Penang and Langkawi. It is now expanding fast, setting up bases in neighbouring countries: Bangkok to Hanoi starts from £25 one-way.

Thailand’s Nok Air (www.nokair.com) also has a burgeoning network from Bangkok — one-way fares to Chiang Mai start from £20. Pacific Airlines (www.pacific airlines.com.vn) of Vietnam is currently restructuring itself to become a low-cost carrier too.

For the time being, steer clear of Indonesia’s Adam Air — blighted by a series of crashes and corruption scandals. For domestic hops in Indonesia, stick with AirAsia or Lion Air (www.lionair.co.id), which have fares from Jakarta to Bali from £15 one-way. The best plan: the region’s route networks are so dense that you can pretty much join up whichever cities you like. AirAsia offers Ryanair-style giveaway fares — pretax one-way flights from just 30p. Get online and start plotting, but my first aim would be to fly to Kuala Lumpur and use the airline to sample exotic Borneo.

With open-jaw tickets from the UK, it’s also a cinch to save money and double up on your destinations — by buying a low-cost linking flight from, say, Singapore to Hong Kong.

NORTH AMERICA

The key players: Southwest Airlines (www.southwest.com) started the entire no-frills revolution in 1971, and now has almost 500 aircraft. Dozens of airlines have followed its lead, flying to all parts of the USA, down to Mexico and into the Caribbean. Meanwhile, both Southwest and JetBlue (www.jetblue.com) have been noisily pioneering “low-cost with frills” — they have great seat-back live TV screens.

In Canada, both Tango and Zip have folded, but WestJet (www.westjet.com) serves 24 cities, and flies to the States, too.

Mexico got its first low-cost carrier last year, prompted by the government sell-off of state-owned Mexicana. There are now more than a dozen copycats, the best of which are Aviacsa (www.aviacsa.com) and Aero California (www.aero california.com) — both have good English-language websites. The best plan: with more than 20 US cities now served by nonstop flights from the UK, it’s an open-jaw paradise, offering endless possibilities for multicentre trips, and chill-out add-ons in the Caribbean or Mexico. Flights from New York or Boston to the Turks and Caicos Islands, for example, cost from £75 one-way with Spirit Air (www.spiritair.com).

Or you could fly to Phoenix with British Airways (www.ba.com) and hop on to San Francisco and Los Angeles, flying home from Phoenix again. That triangle of domestic flights will only set you back about £120 with Southwest.

If you are thinking about adding Hawaii to your West Coast trip, Go (www.iflygo.com) hops between the Hawaiian islands from £20 one-way, and ATA (www.ata.com) will get you there from several mainland airports, including Oakland and Phoenix (from £140 return).

In Mexico, get a cheap charter to Cancun (Charter Flights — 0845 045 0153, www.charterflights.co.uk — has fares from £300), then jet off to explore the Spanish colonial towns and mountains of Oaxaca with Click Mexicana (www.clickmx.com; from about £80 return). It’s simple to combine Mexico with the States, too, with USA3000 Airlines (www.usa 3000.com) and Frontier Airlines (www.frontierairlines.com) operating dozens of routes from Florida, the northeast and California down to the Mexican rivieras, from as little as £100 return.

SOUTH AMERICA

The key players: until now, low-costs have only taken root in Brazil, but they still provide some useful links. Gol (www.voegol.com.br) started in 2001 and has been growing ever since. It now also flies internationally to Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima and Panama City. BRA (www.voebra.com.br) and Ocean Air (www.oceanair.com.br) are other Brazilian options with large and expanding networks.

The best plan: book a Thomsonfly (www.thomsonfly.com) charter from Gatwick to Natal, in Brazil’s northeast, then plug into Gol’s vast network to explore the Amazon region, visit the Iguaçu Falls and drop in on Rio. Natal to Rio starts from £50 one-way. Or get an open-jaw ticket in to Lima and back from Rio, and use Gol to travel in-between.

AFRICA

The key players: as with full-frills airlines, the picture in Africa is patchy at best, but still useful: so far, only South Africa has home-grown LCCs operating domestic flights. Kulula (www.kulula.com), which means “it’s easy” in Zulu, was first on the scene and is continuing to expand across southern Africa. Usefully, it flies into Nelspruit, for the Kruger National Park, and to Mauritius, from Johannesburg.

South African Airways has just responded to Kulula by launching Mango (www.flymango.com), and it is rumoured to be soaking up huge government subsidies — which means you can get one-way fares from just £12.

Look out, too, for the fledgling Fly540 (www.fly540.com) in Kenya. Not strictly low-cost, and operating prop planes for now, it already flies from Nairobi to Mombasa from about £40 one-way and has big plans for the future. The best plan: the LCCs can be a godsend if you can’t find a seat to Cape Town in peak season. Simply get yourself to Johannesburg, which is often a good deal cheaper anyway, and then hop to Cape Town on Kulula (from £36 one-way). Or, if you’re planning to do the Garden Route, ditch the car in the town of George and fly on to Jo’burg for just £25.

If you have mastered the art of open-jaw flying, consider a safari-and-surf double-header, flying into Jo’burg and then hopping to Mauritius with Kulula from £130, then home directly from the island.

THE MIDDLE EAST

The key players: the Middle East has been slow to catch on to the cheap-flight phenomenon, so while Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways are powering away with all the frills they can muster, Air Arabia (www.airarabia.com) cuts a lonely figure as the Gulf’s first low-cost carrier. It is based in the tiny emirate of Sharjah, just a few miles up the coast from Dubai, and flies to 17 cities in the region, with prices for short hops from £28. But Jazeera Airways (www.jazeeraairways.com) has started flights from Kuwait and Dubai to India and Egypt, and other start-ups are in the pipeline. The best plan: grab a cheap flight to Dubai — it’s a route the full-frills Gulf carriers are extremely competitive on from the UK, then hop away with Air Arabia to Sri Lanka, Kathmandu, Cochin, Mumbai, Trivandrum, Chennai and even Jaipur, from only £83 return. Or you could use an EasyJet flight to Istanbul, then an Air Arabia flight on to Dubai — it’s even cheaper, and you’ll get a bonus few days in Istanbul (all four flights there and back would cost as little as £185). And if even that isn’t adventurous enough, combine it with onward flights to Yemen, Nepal, or Central Asia, with fares to San’a from £120 return.

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