ABSTRACT
Charter or ‘leisure’ airlines had been operating low-cost and low-fare passenger services very successfully in some parts of the world long before the emergence of the so-called low-cost airlines. The global significance of passenger charters within the air transport industry can be gauged from the fact that in the mid-2010s around 5 per cent of the world’s international passenger traffic, measured in passenger-kms, was being carried on charter flights. The two largest charter or leisure airline groups, TUI and Thomas Cook, have larger fleets than some medium- and smaller-sized European full-service legacy airlines. Traditionally, within the Europe-Mediterranean area, which is the world’s largest passenger charter market, the vast majority of series charter flights have been inclusive tour charters. In September 2007, the European Commission approved the merger of TUI, by far the largest leisure group in Europe in terms of revenue, with First Choice, the fourth largest.
