Charter Flights

For the vast majority of travellers heading off on their summer holiday, they are transported to their destination via a charter flight, which comes as part of the package holiday deal. Charter flights are usually sold directly to a tour operator who then 'charters', or rents, the plane to fly to popular tourist destinations, and do differ from scheduled flights, which are sold directly from the airline to the public and operate on a daily basis.

 

Charter flights are also now available on a 'flight-only' basis, with these fares usually being much cheaper than scheduled flights. Popular destinations in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy are available on this basis, with charter flights to airports such as Alicante, Malaga, Gerona, Palma and Tenerife widely available for those who prefer to arrange their own accommodation. Thanks to the popularity of time-shares and second-home sales, many people are booking their own charter flights and enjoying the benefit of the increasing amount of cheap airfares on the market. Passengers looking to travel on popular routes where there are many carriers competing for business can take advantage of very cheap airfares as more and more charter flights are available. Low-cost airlines such as easyJet and ryanair, which specialise in no-frills flights, offer extremely competitive fares on their charter flights and boast a huge itinerary for passengers.  

 

Charter flights tend to fly on a weekly or fortnightly rotation basis, however some operators can offer different durations such as 10-day flights or one-way flights due to their availability. Many charter flight routes are only offered during the peak summer season when there is enough demand to fill an entire plane. Charter flight fares are affected by supply and demand which dictates the price, with the best fares on summer routes found early or late in the season, and year-round destinations seeing the cheapest airfare during the low-season, when demand is slower and there is plenty of charter flight availability. Established airlines such as Monarch offer charter flights, and a number of well-known tour operators such as Thomson, Thomas Cook and First Choice now have their own charter airlines, offering competitive charter flights to a range of popular destinations.