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The Difference between Chartered and Scheduled Flights
At first this seems like an extremely simple question:
chartered flights are obviously more expensive than normal
scheduled flights. Most people get scheduled flights, why
would you do anything else?

However, while this is obviously the case if you were to
charter a flight yourself, in actual fact chartered flights
are often chartered by holiday companies making them
considerably cheaper. These flights have published
schedules but the tickets cannot be purchased
independently; they must be purchased through the holiday
company. These chartered flights are the reason that
holiday companies are able to provide such extremely cheap
holidays.

What is a chartered flight? Flight charting is done by
every airline and is required by airports before any
aircraft can be given permission for takeoff. It basically
refers to course plotting for the plane including scheduled
take-off and landing times as well as the flight route.
Many of the major well-known airlines charter their flights
independently and publish schedules months or years ahead
of time. Such companies are scheduled airlines. A
chartered airline is an airline that specifically caters to
individual customers and charters a flight for them. Such
companies do charter flights for the rich and can cost a
small fortune for a single flight, but this is not all that
they do. By far the more common occupation for chartered
airlines is chartering flights for large holiday companies.
These companies charter much larger planes far further in
advance, on a much more regular schedule. As such the
flights chartered by holiday companies often appear similar
to scheduled flights but with one important difference: the
airline has no ability to sell individual tickets, the
holiday company already owns all the seats on the flight.

Why use holiday-company chartered flights? The economics of
the holiday chartered flight are actually fairly simple
– at certain time of the year the demand for flights
to key holiday destinations is much higher. This demand is
amplified if the holiday company can assemble a package
with a resort for cheap accommodation. As such it is a
fairly cyclical process: the holiday company charters many
flights and provides cheap accommodation at a resort;
prices thus drop because of the enormous bulk purchases,
and then demand rises further. In order for it to work
every seat on the flight has to be taken. Scheduled
flights usually cost more because they are compensating for
the inevitable shortage of customers. Holiday companies
can match demand and thus provide extremely cheap flights.

The benefits of the chartered flight are thus easy to see;
while it at first appears that chartered flights may be
more expensive, in reality they often work out to be
considerably cheaper than anything a scheduled flight can
offer. When you combine this with the cheap resort
accommodation and kitchen faucets it equals extremely low prices for an
extremely relaxing and easily organized holiday.

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http://www.directline-holidays.co.uk provides you with the
latest holiday offers, cheap flights, essential information
& reviews on destinations worldwide