The Lemon Fool

Hi,

Has anyone noticed the poor departure / return flights of european package holidays for 2023? I'm mainly looking at Spanish / Greek Islands with Jet2 or TUI and they all seem to be in the middle of the night. Does anyone know of the reason for this? I don't mind paying more for daytime flights but there hardly appear to be any.

Thanks

Andy46 wrote:Has anyone noticed the poor departure / return flights of european package holidays for 2023? I'm mainly looking at Spanish / Greek Islands with Jet2 or TUI and they all seem to be in the middle of the night. Does anyone know of the reason for this? I don't mind paying more for daytime flights but there hardly appear to be any.

Flight timings may be affected more by the destination airport and country. They may prefer the packed charter and low-cost airlines to have slot times that are in less busy times of the day. The reasoning being that, unlike business flyers, holiday flyers are less bothered by timing.

Also the cost of airport fees and slots may be cheaper at less popular times of the day, which is more relevant for charter and low cost airlines.

Finally airlines like to maximise the time their planes are in use. That can mean flights at 5 a.m. or 11 p.m.

Andy46 wrote:,

Has anyone noticed the poor departure / return flights of european package holidays for 2023? I'm mainly looking at Spanish / Greek Islands with Jet2 or TUI and they all seem to be in the middle of the night.

I just took a look at Jet2’s offering for 2023 and they didn’t seem to be much changed from what the package companies have always offered? Either an early morning flight out and and afternoon return, or an afternoon flight out (now the aircraft has returned) and a midnight return back - and that was for a variety of destinations in Greece.

Most airlines use slots to time when flights are used. Obviously some are more expensive than others. It's also the case with airports, some are cheaper that others.

I'm sure we would all prefer better flight times but we can't all travel at the same time.

As for 2023, maybe they have picked the cheaper options. There might be a bit of profit to be made if everyone ends up booking late rooms, extra meals etc. Or is that just me being cynical.

Andy46 wrote:Hi,

Has anyone noticed the poor departure / return flights of european package holidays for 2023? I'm mainly looking at Spanish / Greek Islands with Jet2 or TUI and they all seem to be in the middle of the night. Does anyone know of the reason for this? I don't mind paying more for daytime flights but there hardly appear to be any.

Thanks

I believe this is because they aren't scheduled flights. Try a different airport. I don't where you live but you can sometimes get reasonable times at smaller regional style airports. We use East Midlands for Tenerife. Flying out is reasonable but return flights arrive at 1am (ish). If I recall correctly Birmingham has similar times. It's been a few years since we flew to Spain. That was in the days when we could fly out of Humberside Airport at Midday and land back at 3pm in an afternoon.

AiY(D)

Andy46 wrote:Hi,

Has anyone noticed the poor departure / return flights of european package holidays for 2023?

I don't think that's anything new. I can recall moaning about it on TMF in 2000.

If you can do the organising, booking hotels and flights separately can be a better bet for sensible timings.

It’s partly to maximise aircraft use with least crew stopovers. On short haul the same aircraft and crew can do an out and return but this leads to some awkward departure and arrival times. Pilots are restricted to 13 hours IIRC so an out and return with quick turnarounds works.

Alaric wrote:If you can do the organising, booking hotels and flights separately can be a better bet for sensible timings.

In the past that was a pretty low risk option but post-pandemic with the airlines (and airports) cancelling flights at the drop of a hat, then it can be a much higher risk strategy where you end up with the hotel paid for but no flights to get there.

At least with a package holiday then one company is responsible for delivering everything - although you need to make sure it is actually a package as some of the scummier websites sell flights and accommodation but all as agent for the individual suppliers.

AF62 wrote:

Alaric wrote:If you can do the organising, booking hotels and flights separately can be a better bet for sensible timings.

In the past that was a pretty low risk option but post-pandemic with the airlines (and airports) cancelling flights at the drop of a hat, then it can be a much higher risk strategy where you end up with the hotel paid for but no flights to get there.

At least with a package holiday then one company is responsible for delivering everything - although you need to make sure it is actually a package as some of the scummier websites sell flights and accommodation but all as agent for the individual suppliers.

I don't think we've booked a package holiday for well over ten years. There may have been advantages, but they were also trying to keep things as cheap as possible, so some flights there/back were at ridiculous times.

My wife generally chooses the place and hotels, then asks what I think. She knows that I just want to 'crash', so as long as there's internet, pools and gym am not too fussy. Usually uses booking.com, but sometimes she just phones the hotel. Within Europe, she makes sure there is a reasonable choice of flights. So far, never had a problem.

Steve

stevensfo wrote:

AF62 wrote:

Alaric wrote:If you can do the organising, booking hotels and flights separately can be a better bet for sensible timings.

In the past that was a pretty low risk option but post-pandemic with the airlines (and airports) cancelling flights at the drop of a hat, then it can be a much higher risk strategy where you end up with the hotel paid for but no flights to get there.

At least with a package holiday then one company is responsible for delivering everything - although you need to make sure it is actually a package as some of the scummier websites sell flights and accommodation but all as agent for the individual suppliers.

I don't think we've booked a package holiday for well over ten years. There may have been advantages, but they were also trying to keep things as cheap as possible, so some flights there/back were at ridiculous times.

Probably 20 years since we had last booked a package, but then in December 2020 it seemed a safer idea when we wanted to travel and the world was rather uncertain.

stevensfo wrote:My wife generally chooses the place and hotels, then asks what I think. She knows that I just want to 'crash', so as long as there's internet, pools and gym am not too fussy. Usually uses booking.com, but sometimes she just phones the hotel. Within Europe, she makes sure there is a reasonable choice of flights. So far, never had a problem.

Likewise never had a problem booking independently, but then in normal times it wouldn’t bother me too much about the risk of cancelled flights but the pandemic opened a whole new world with every countries governments changing the rules at the last minute.

As for price, after booking the December 2020 package through a small independent tour operator, I was very surprised at the prices for hotel accommodation they were able to obtain (without flights) - far cheaper than the usual sites like Booking.com and far far cheaper than hotel was listing them - so cheap I would have been embarrassed to call the hotel to ask them to price match.

As for the flights through the tour operator, they had the full range of flights from all the airlines to choose from so effectively it was just like putting together an independent trip but just booking everything as a package through one operator.