Originally Posted by
Rob Royston
Originally Posted by
iggie
Rob Royston What is meant by 'the designated resort's arrival day'?
I mean the way that many holiday resorts served from these airports will all be on the one day, e.g.. Funchal is almost all Monday arrivals, although you can arrive on a Thursday for some bookings if you arrange travel yourself.
This is a longstanding practice at European resorts, going back to the earliest days of holiday charter flights, where operations to a given destination from multiple start points are concentrated on a given day of the week. It gives a range of advantages, as any combination of flight and accommodation can be offered and combined, without any wasted empty accommodation days. It also meant that consolidating flights, even between different tour operators and airlines, in the shoulder season was straightforward. Different resorts had this key day on different days of the week to enable the aircraft to be in use throughout. Although never really absolute, there was a considerable tendency to stick to this pattern, such as Palma on Saturday, Fuerteventura on Wednesday, etc, and although with the rise of LCCs the original rationale has diminished, the old pattern can still be seen in schedules.
Downsides were a limited choice of departure days for given destinations, as passengers would find most operators and airlines only offered the same day, and notably handling issues at the destination airport, with the need for considerable resources and overcrowding on one or two days of the week, and much less at other times.