Open jaw flights in Europe, built from budget one-ways
An open jaw flight lands you in one city and takes you home from another. On long-haul trips you book it as one ticket, because a one-way fare can cost nearly as much as a return. Inside Europe, budget airlines sell one-way fares, so a chain of one-ways is already an open jaw, at no extra cost.
That changes how you plan. Most open-jaw advice is written for someone flying from New York to London and home from Rome on a full-service airline. It’s good advice for that trip, and the wrong advice for a hop between European cities on Ryanair or Wizz Air.
On a budget airline there’s no return discount to lose by finishing somewhere else. What you can lose is money on the order and dates of the flights in between, and a night’s sleep on a badly timed leg.
What is an open jaw flight?
Wikipedia defines an open-jaw ticket as a return ticket where the destination or the origin isn’t the same in both directions. The name comes from the shape on a map: two flight lines joined at one end and open at the other, like a jaw. You cover the open gap yourself, by train, bus, car or another flight.
There are three kinds:
- Destination open jaw. You fly from home to Lisbon and back home from Athens. This is the one most people mean.
- Origin open jaw. You fly out of one city and come back to another, for example out of Warsaw and back to Kraków.
- Double open jaw. Both ends differ: Warsaw to Lisbon, then Athens to Kraków. The same page notes that these are really two separate fares.
Why the long-haul rule doesn’t apply on budget airlines
On full-service airlines, an open jaw is priced as a round trip, which usually makes it cheaper than two one-way flights, and Going’s glossary says that on international trips an open jaw is almost always cheaper than two separate one-ways. Going’s booking guide gives the reason: international one-way fares are often nearly as expensive as a round trip. So for a long-haul flight, the advice is right. Book the open jaw as one ticket using the multi-city option, and compare it with a plain return.
Budget airlines work the other way round. They often sell only one-way tickets and fly point to point. Irish Travel Addict found that Ryanair’s MultiCity booking gives no discount: it’s effectively two separate one-ways in one checkout.
That’s why, inside Europe, you don’t need a special ticket. Fly Warsaw to Lisbon on one airline and Athens to Warsaw on another, and you’ve built an open jaw from two ordinary one-way fares.
| Open jaw on a full-service airline | Open jaw from budget one-ways | |
|---|---|---|
| How it’s priced | As one round trip | Each leg on its own |
| How you book it | One ticket, multi-city search | A separate booking per flight |
| Cost of finishing elsewhere | Can be close to a return, so price both | No return discount to lose |
| The gap in the middle | Yours to cover | Yours to cover, often with another one-way |
| Missed connection on another ticket | Your risk | Your risk |
| Bags | Check what the fare includes | Checked bags often cost extra on every leg |
Two ways to fly an open jaw in Europe
Flying in from outside Europe
Book the long-haul part as one open-jaw ticket on a full-service airline: into the first city, home from the last one. Price a plain return to the same cities too, as Going suggests. Then fill in everything between those two cities with budget one-ways, trains or buses.
Keep the long-haul ticket and the budget flights apart in time. They’re separate bookings, and a low-cost airline doesn’t take transfers from other flights or compensate you for a missed connection. If your transatlantic flight lands late and you miss a Ryanair departure the same afternoon, the new flight is on you. Spend the first night where you land.
Starting inside Europe
If you live in Europe, the whole trip can be one-ways, so the shape is up to you. Fly out to Lisbon, work east, and fly home from Athens. Or fly home to a different airport near you, if that leg is cheaper. Nobody charges you for the open jaw, because there’s no round trip to break.
Ryanair’s MultiCity tool isn’t much help here. Irish Travel Addict’s guide says your home country generally stays fixed as the return point, and the stops usually stay within one destination country. Book the legs as plain one-ways instead, on whichever airline flies each one.
How to build an open jaw from one-way flights
1. List the cities, not the order
Write down the cities you want to see, your travel window and roughly how many nights each one deserves. Leave the order blank for now. Going in through Lisbon and out through Athens is a guess until you’ve seen the prices.
2. Keep the finish open
If you can fly home from any of two or three cities, say so in the search. On one-way fares, finishing somewhere else costs nothing in itself, and every extra finish gives you more routes to compare.
3. Price the whole chain, not the first flight
The cheapest first flight is a trap. A bargain into Lisbon can commit you to an expensive day for every leg after it. Each leg is priced on its own, so a different order of cities means a different set of flights on different days.
I ran a real search on 5 October 2026: Warsaw through Lisbon, Barcelona, Paris, Rome and Athens, between 2 November and 1 December, with 3 to 6 nights in each city. It wasn’t an open jaw, since I started and finished in Warsaw, but every leg was a separate one-way, which is the part that matters here. The same five cities came to anything from €261.76 to €414.42 in flights, depending on the order and the dates.
Fares were checked that day, and Wizz Air and Volotea fares weren’t available in that search, so another day could find cheaper legs. It’s not a price you’ll get. I walk through finding that order in the cheapest order to visit cities.
4. Check when each flight lands
A cheap leg that lands after midnight isn’t cheap. It sucks to pay twice for the same night: you book a hotel bed in the new city that you’ll barely use, while last night’s room in the old one is already paid for. ffly counts that night as the hotel night it costs you. An early departure has the same problem from the other end, with a 3 a.m. alarm.
5. Add bags and buffers before you book
Budget fares often leave out bags, and with separate bookings you pay for them on every leg. Add the bags you need to each flight before you compare totals. Wherever two tickets meet on the same day, leave several hours between them or stay the night, because the second airline doesn’t have to wait for you.
When an open jaw isn’t worth it
If the gap between your two cities is a long, slow ground trip, the open jaw can cost you a day of the holiday. Price a flight across the gap before you commit to a long train ride.
On a long-haul ticket, an open jaw is sometimes dearer than a return. Going’s booking guide says an open jaw is usually comparable in price to a return, so price both. If the return is much cheaper, a budget one-way back to your arrival city can still come out ahead, as long as you leave a buffer before the long flight home.
For the wider question of whether to book one multi-city ticket or separate one-ways, see multi-city vs one-way tickets.
How ffly fits in
ffly, a multi-city trip planner, plans the one-way part of an open jaw. You pick where you start, one or more places to finish, the cities you want to see, your travel window and a range of nights for each city. It compares orders and dates for the whole trip and ranks the routes by Best schedule, Balanced or Cheapest. It favours sensible flight times over pre-dawn starts, and counts a midnight landing as the hotel night it costs you.
If you’re flying in from outside Europe, book the long-haul ticket yourself and give ffly the European part: start where you land, finish where your flight home leaves. Fares come from Ryanair, Wizz Air, airBaltic, Volotea and more.
ffly covers flights only, so a train across the jaw is yours to plan. It’s a search tool, not a travel agent: you book each flight on the airline’s site or a booking site, and fares may not include bags. To see how your own cities line up, try a search free on the web or in the iPhone app.
Once the finish is open, the next question is the order of the cities in between. I’ve covered it in German (günstigste Reihenfolge der Städte) and in French (dans quel ordre visiter plusieurs villes). German readers have their own guide to the open jaw itself: Gabelflug in Europa mit Billigfliegern.
FAQ
What is an open jaw flight?
A trip where you fly into one city and home from another, or leave from one city and come back to a different one. You cover the gap in between yourself, by train, bus, car or another flight. On budget airlines in Europe, two one-way fares give you the same thing.
Are open jaw flights cheaper than a round trip?
On full-service long-haul flights, an open jaw is priced like a round trip and is often about the same price, so compare both. On Europe’s budget airlines each leg is a one-way fare, so the order and dates of your flights move the price more.
What is the difference between open jaw and multi-city?
An open jaw has a gap you cover on the ground, such as flying into Lisbon and home from Athens. A multi-city trip has a flight between every city. On budget airlines both are just one-way flights booked separately, so the difference is only whether you fly the gap.
Can you book an open jaw on a budget airline?
Yes, as two or more one-way flights. You can fly in with one airline and home with another. Ryanair’s MultiCity tool generally keeps your home country as the return point, so plain one-ways give you more choice.
What if my long-haul flight lands late for a budget connection?
The budget flight is a separate booking. Low-cost airlines don’t take transfers from other flights or compensate you for a missed connection, so you’d usually buy a new flight. Spend your first night where you land and book the onward budget leg for the next day.
Key takeaways
- An open jaw flight lands in one city and leaves from another, and you cover the gap in between yourself.
- On long-haul full-service flights, book the open jaw as one ticket, because one-way fares there are often nearly as expensive as a return.
- Budget airlines in Europe sell one-way fares, so a chain of one-ways is already an open jaw at no extra cost.
- In a real five-city round trip from Warsaw, built from one-way legs, the order and dates moved the flights total from €262 to €414.
- With separate tickets, check landing times, add bags to every leg and leave a buffer wherever two bookings meet.