what is a charter flight????

[amoeba]

whats a charter flight - and is it cheaper than a normal flight? cheers

[pezza.......]

A charter flight is something that is usually operated by a Holiday type airline (JMC, Thomas Cook) to destinations such as Tenerife and other summer holiday type locations. The other type of flight is a scheduled flight which are usually operated by the likes of BA, Virgin, Continental etc. These routes are usually aimed at business travel and will usually be run whether there are adequate passengers to fill the aircraft or not. In answer to your question, charter flights are usually cheaper than scheduled although some good deals can be had on scheduled flights if you book early enough.

[lisaj]

whoa! a charter flight is one that has been "chartered", ie. "rented" by a company - usually a tour operator - who then crams as many people onto it as possible. The operator rents the plane, crew, fuel, ground clearance, etc. and pays for it irrespective of whether there's 10 or 110 people on board. Hence the cost per person drops when they cram 380 revellers onboard. Likewise at the '99 solar eclipse, a company chartered a BA concorde to chase the eclipse, and charging people to go on the flight. You cannot choose to go on a chartered flight per se... If the company you book a trip through has chartered a plane because they'll make more money than the profit they'll get booking however many scheduled seats they need, then they'll charter a plane. Me... I get money off my holidays and then book my own scheduled flight because all the airlines that charter planes to holiday tour operators, eg. Monarch, are nothing short of abysmal.

[KARL]

Scheduled flights and chartered ones are different along the lines already described. However, it is possible to buy a flight-only passage direct from the charter operator, but often through an agent only. The charter operators are not obliged to make seats available to individual members of the public although they often do have spare seats when block bookings are returned. Scheduled fights are subject to a variety of regulations which the charters are free of (reliability, etc.) but in practice they can appear quite similar.