It has become easier to buy a ticket for a charter flight
To find the truly cheapest ticket, you had to pick up the phone and call dozens of offline agencies – often a travel company manager could find a better option than the most advanced ticketing website.
With the advent of the electronic ticket in 2008, the situation changed dramatically – ticketing websites began to appear like mushrooms after rain, and today everyone can find a suitable online service. In addition, so-called metasearch engines appeared – sites that find the cheapest online agency, comparing hundreds of flight options in seconds. Perhaps we can confidently state that the pinnacle of progress has been reached, and nothing fundamentally new can be invented today.
However, let's take any two ticketing websites and compare what it's all about – the cost of the flight. For example, let's see how much an air ticket to Antalya will cost from different agencies, as it is one of the most popular destinations for our tourists. And then we notice that the difference between the most advanced and powerful online agency website and a veteran from the early 2000s is only 500-700 rubles. Is that all the new decade can offer us?
Of course not! Now we have the opportunity to purchase so-called charter air tickets, that is, tickets for flights that are simply not in the airlines' schedules, but tickets that are available from large tour operators who are the customers of these flights. Neither airlines nor travel agencies can physically sell such tickets because charter flights are not in the global booking systems.
But the tour operator itself does not sell such tickets at retail, only as a package with hotel and transfer. And the price of a charter is very attractive – the discount compared to a regular flight can sometimes be up to 90%. For example, a charter to Antalya costs about 10,000 rubles year-round, while the price of a regular flight ticket, for instance in August, would be 22,000 rubles.
Is it really impossible to buy a charter ticket? In fact, there are only a few agencies that sell such air tickets. To find them online, it is enough to change the structure of your search query. So, if earlier we searched for 'air ticket to Antalya', now we enter 'charter to Antalya' in the search bar and on the first site we find the coveted ticket for a charter flight.
_