Last week went on holiday to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Being a cheapskate I hunted round for the cheapest ticket. When it arrived it had a slew of names on it including Exelair, Freedom Flights and Air Atlanta.
On the day it was an Air Malta A320-214. Outbound was fantastic, tailwind reduced scheduled 5hrs 30min to 4hrs 40min.
Inbound tailwind is now a head wind and scheduled 5hrs 45 min becomes 4hrs to Venice 45min fuelling stop and 1hr 50mins Venice to BHX.
Captain said approx. 8 times out of 12 he'd flown the sector the same thing had happened.
Does this imply they are using the wrong machine, presumably Air Malta tendered for this with this type. Is it a fixed price, i.e. who absorbs the oncosts (landing fee, additional crew hours etc-presumably headwinds/tailwinds approx. net out in fuel costs)?
Also the flying time excluding fuel stop was 5hr 50 min, only 5 min longer than scheduled, does this mean that if the aircraft is full of pax and bags (very likely as cheapo charter) then it is never going to make the scheduled time without a fuel stop. But the monkeys are holding it out as a direct flight
, do you think I'll get anywhere if I have a pop at the ticket seller on this basis?
Cheers