What are Charter Flights are They Right for You?

I've taken charter flights a few times and can recommend them if you are looking to save money and willing to put up with the possibility of being inconvenienced.

For ease of illustration, I will use Homeric Tours out of NY who is one of the larger charter companies specializing in travel to Greece. Homeric offers tours, cruises and flights on commercial airlines to Greece. The also offer Charters. They have set up a contract with a company that owns the planes(last year it was North American Air, before that TowerAir and they have a new company that they lease the plane from this year-but I'm not sure who it is).

Homeric now has a plane-and they don't have to worry about flying it or maintaining it-just getting people on it). Their flights are scheduled to fly once a week in each direction from June to August, but charters can run as many times a week, or for the full year....depending on the demand.

So that is all a charter is.... a plane leased by a company to fly to the destination of it's choice.

How are charters different?

There are a few ways that charters are different. The most important is how you are protected. When you fly a charter(again in this case, Homeric), you will sign a contract which is two pages long and covers a lot of territory. I read the contract and realized that there were clauses that, if used, would not make me very happy.

One of the biggest problems that I saw was that they could raise the fares even after you purchased the ticket(called a surcharge) to cover added expenses they've incurred(usually fuel).

Cancellation- If written notice of cancellation is received by "HTI" for charter your cancellation charges per person
Will be: up to 30 days or more before departure, $50 penalty; from 29 days to 15 days before departure, $150 penalty; 14 to 3 days before departure, $250 penalty: 2 days or less before departure, 100% of charges.

The other large problem is that they are not responsible for delayed or late flights. If the flight is delayed or cancelled then you are own your own. You'll buy your own food, pay your own transport out of the airport and back in, pay for your own hotel. These are all costs that are usually taken up by the commercial airline(Air France, Lufthansa, Olympic, Delta etc...) in what the call "protection". By law, the commerical airline must take care of it's passengers if there is a delay. There is no such protection required on charter flights.

The plane itself can be different also. The charter flights I've taken always seemed to have much less leg room than I remember on commercial flights....and that is because there is! Charter companies often put the seats closer together to squeeze in more passengers. Remember...each seat is worth $300-600 per flight. If it were you, how many extra seats would you try to squeeze in?

And finally....delays. Imagine, one plane flying back and forth to Greece(we're using Homeric still). It is scheduled to arrive in Athens at 8am and depart at 10:30am. That's two hours to turn around. The smallest problem could easily cause a delay and since they don't have their own mechanics, they will have to wait for one to become available.

Included n the delays....check in. I flew on a 747 that held 500 people. Working the checkout counters were 4 people. I believe we waited in line for over 3 hours!

Takeoff delays? If traffic is air traffic is backed up, guess who is last on the priority list to take off(and land).

Final Decision- Should I Fly by Charter?

As I've said, I've flown charters a number of times and they have been quite pleasant and uneventful, but I have friends who have horror stories. One of them was so pissed off after waiting in the airport for 16 hours and being told in two hour increments that the plane would be there "in about two hours", when in reality it hadn't even departed on it's 10 hour flight to pick him up! He ended up writing his congressmen, the FAA and every newspaper he could think of
That is not a fun way to start or end a vacation!

I know other people who take charters yearly and swear by them. Their flights have taken off on time and have been uneventful and they arrive safely and inexpensively in Greece.

That reminds me... look at the inexpensively. Compare it to the fares that you would pay on scheduled airlines. The savings can be anywhere from nothing to a few hundred dollars. Just because it's a charter flight, it doesn't mean it's less expensive than a commercial flight(although it usually is).

The other thing to consider is if you are connecting to and from a charter. If you have to fly to NY to catch the charter, you need to include the cost to getting there. You'll also want to leave plenty of time between flights because if you miss a flight that is not issued on the ticket with the flight that caused you to miss a flight you are not protected.(A missed charter is probably pretty close to a disaster since they usually fly full so there will not be any extra seats on the next day!). If the charter causes you to miss your flight from NY back home...again, you're not protected!

So....what to do? I would look at the money that you may save and ask yourself. If the flight is delayed and I end up arriving or departing 12 hours late and sit in the airport frustrated because I can't get any information on when the flight is taking off, will the money I saved be worth it?