1960
Harry Chandler of The Travel Club of Upminster
claimed the first Jet holiday charter from the UK, operating an Air France Caravelle weekly charter London Airport to Basel –
The firm still carried the slogan, Jet to the Sun! until their demise.
Basel was convenient for Lakes & Mountains, plus to connect with his European Coach Tours start point.
As it was so popular, more Air France Caravelles from London Airport to Corsica and Nice were also chartered by the Travel Club Upminster.
Harry Chandler had seen that AF had available aircraft at Weekends (which were generally quiet days for AF back then) and thus managed to obtain rock bottom seat prices for the weekly or fortnightly charter series.
I believe the aircraft were sitting at LAP anyway.
This beat the Comet (and the 1-11) by many years in flying UK package holiday makers abroad by charter Jet, although BEA Comets were flying scheduled flights to some sun spots, it was the BEA Vanguard that tended to do most of those runs, both scheduled and charter.
British United 1965, and British Eagle in 1966, were first with the BAC 1-11 on IT charters, and then Dan Air with their first 2 Comets from 1966.
1960's advert