SEAT-ONLY sales are holding up well in spite of a dip in the overseas holiday market, according to consolidators.
Avro claimed its bookings to mid-February were up as much as 10% on the same period last year while sister company Cosmos Flights claimed a 6.5% increase in sales.
Crucially, both operators have also seen a corresponding rise in revenues, with Cosmos Flights claiming a 20% increase. Avro said its revenues had increased in line with fares, which are £3 higher on average than this time last year.
Avro distribution director John Fitz-Gerald said: “Demand at the start of the year was very slow, but it picked up the following week and on the whole, the last two months have gone quite well.”
Fitz-Gerald said it was too early to say whether operators were in for a good year, but early indications were positive.
“January and February are the two most crucial months for seat-only operators and we won’t know how we are doing until we get the final figures up to the end of February, but it looks as though the season has got off to a better start than last year.”
There has been some discounting for departures during Euro 2000 football championships in June, with operators knocking as much as £10 a head off flights to the Mediterranean to encourage people to go on holiday while the football is on.
“Operators are trying to get rid of seats early because they are worried the football championships will have a similar effect as the World Cup and people won’t travel,” said Fitz-Gerald.
JMC Airfares claimed it had sold a lot of its capacity for both May and June, and general manager Rob Thompson said the markets for July and August were “as strong as ever”.
He said JMC’s additional flights from Stansted and Luton, where the operator has based aircraft for the first time this summer, have sold well. “The new flights from Stansted and Luton have made an impressive start with some destinations set to exceed our expectations,” added Thompson.
The destinations performing particularly well, according to seat-only operators, include mainland Spain, the Balearics and the Canaries, while Turkey, Madeira, Greece and Florida are all selling better than expected.
Cosmos Flights has doubled its capacity to Madeira, adding extra flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Luton and Birmingham, for the whole of the summer season to cope with an increase in demand.
An extra 50,000 seats have been brought on to the market for this year with the launch of Gatwick-based Freedom Flights, the UK’s newest seat-only operator set up by ex-Flights by Inspirations commercial director Paul Moss.
Freedom is offering flights to most of the major destinations in the Mediterranean from Gatwick, but Moss insisted that his additional capacity would not destabilise the market.
“We will only be flying during the peak travel periods, at times when there will always be more passengers than seats,” he said.
“We will only fly when there is demand and when there isn’t any demand, we won’t fly.”