I don’t think the tour operators operate to any different principles than anyone else really. I’m sure it’s all about the bottom line. I think the difference is that, compared to a scheduled operator like Jet2, the profit dynamic is much less transparent.
When Jet2 run a service to say PMI, it’s pretty simple. They sell the tickets and the revenue they get is a function of load x average yield per passenger. Take off the operating costs and there you have it. And it’s pretty easy for the casual observer to get a feel for yields, loads and the extent to which discounts and marketing effort are used to get bums on seats.
Compare that to say My Travel running a charter to PMI. Passengers on that flight will be a combination of flight only and package customers. These passengers may have booked directly My Travel or through another travel agent and there are likely to be seat allocations given over to other tour operators, and of course the actual flying may well be subcontracted to an other airline. So, the number of businesses looking to take some margin out of the 150-180 passengers on such a service is complicated to say the least. And all the casual observer has to go on to gauge success is load, which invariably will be in the high 90%s because the tour operators are very good at shifting empty seats and filling empty hotel and apartment rooms. But there’s just no line of sight from the 95% load to the bottom line, unfortunately.
The other complication of course is that even if everyone does take some profit out the service, they might all take more if those passengers were flown out of another UK airport. Tour Operators know that simply not offering a service ex-LBA doesn’t mean would-be holidaymakers drop their plans and so operating the flight out of MAN is likely to still get the passengers and potentially lower unit costs from the airline.
I don’t profess to be an expert on this, but it strikes me as the most logical explanation for why charter series operator for one season or two with full loads, only to disappear the following year.
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