Charter flights cheaper option

Cheaperholidays report on the extra charges imposed by Budget Airlines: The response from ABTA was “Time will tell” whether or not budget airlines will be hurt by new additional charges, this week.

According to Abta, supplementary charges for services such as checking in baggage and priority booking have made passengers think twice, when booking their holidays.

The press officer at Abta, said: “A lot of these flight charges are fairly recent and time will tell how that impacts on people’s choices”.

“The traditional airlines have lowered their prices to compete with the no-frills carriers and there’s a lot of competition now for fairly short-haul [flights].”

For Example Holiday Which? has called Ryanair “the worst offender” for forcing customers to pay £20 at the airport to check a bag into the hold for a return flight if the booking was not made online.

It found that checking bags into the hold costs £18 with Flybe and £10 with easyJet.

The magazine adds that Ryanair also charged £4 “simply to use the check-in desk”.

He added that families should bear in mind that there are alternative choices available to them, other than no-frills carriers.

A report published by Holiday Which? in February this year revealed that 44 per cent of people are still using traditional high street travel agents when booking their holidays, for at least part of the trip.

Furthermore, another 29 per cent phoned or paid a visit to a travel agent for information before making a travel-related purchase.