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There are many airlines in Europe which provide charter airline service to (mostly) holiday destination cities in the winter. For example, there is a direct flight from Prague to Sal in Cape Verde by Travel Service airlines (flight code QS4135) which cannot be found on regular flight search engines.

Is there a website which can search for such charter flights and (possibly) allow for their purchase?

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  • possible duplicate of Is there a booking site for chartering flights?
    – Karlson
    Jan 7, 2014 at 21:15
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    That question is about booking private charter flights. I'm talking about regular flights which are considered "charter" by airlines. You can buy such tickets from local travel agencies but they usually list travel packages on their websites, not individual flights. See my Prague-Sal example. The airline flies there on a weekly basis yet no search engine knows about it.
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Jan 7, 2014 at 21:22

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According to the Travel Service Website charter flights are seasonal and are provided as a service to travel agencies:

On its charter flights Travel Service transports not only clients of Czech and foreign travel agencies

So the only people who would know about these flights are the agencies or an agency that charters it. The fact that flight comes and goes with some regularity there is no requirement for Travel Service to make this flight if it has not been paid for.

Namely: Air Charter service is renting out the entire aircraft (and crew) to an agency which then sells the tickets usually as part of a package case in point USA3000 airline which had a regularly scheduled flights to the Caribbean islands from the US but after 2008 you could not book the seat on it individually only from Apple Vacations as part of your vacation package.

So if you want to purchase a seat on a chartered flight you will need to get in touch with the company that chartered the plane and even then they don't have to sell you a seat only if they are selling seats as part of a package.

P.S. The closest alternative available for getting a seat on a chartered flight that I had found would be Jump Seat. This doesn't mean that you will get the flight you want or even that someone will want to deal with you if you found.

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  • That's a great explanation of how chartered tourist flights work. However I was also wondering if there is a website which lists such semi-regular flights. I assume that they exist from many major capitals worldwide. For example the Wikipedia page for Sal airport lists the Travel Service flights to Prague, so the information has to be available somewhere.
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Jan 8, 2014 at 15:04
  • I have also found at least one travel agency willing to sell me just the ticket to Cape Verde, so I would assume similar deals exist for many airlines worldwide.
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Jan 8, 2014 at 15:10
  • @JonathanReez As I mentioned this flight may occur on a regular basis but it is not a regularly scheduled flight nor may it be chartered by the same company/individual. If a travel agency doesn't charter the plane the flight doesn't happen. Wikipedia page while is a good start may not have all information. For example Thomson Airways provides pretty regular service to SAL also but it's not listed and I unfortunately can't read Portuguese to look at the official Airport's website for details.
    – Karlson
    Jan 8, 2014 at 15:28
  • It could be at least "destination A to destination B can be reached by charter company C during the winter on a bi-weekly basis", even if there isn't a definite schedule for each flight. If someone doesn't come up with an answer within the next few days I will assume that it doesn't exist and accept your answer :)
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Jan 8, 2014 at 15:38
  • The jump seat link is dead. Has the service moved or is it defunct/no longer in business?
    – Roddy of the Frozen Peas
    Jun 9, 2016 at 11:59
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The website socialflights.com offers the service you are looking for. You can search for an available seat on an a private aircraft already chartered by someone else, or click "Get a quote" to get an offer (not instantly) for traveling from airport A to airport B with X people.

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    I think the OP is after the other kind of charter flights. (The "bucket and spade" kind, not the "champagne and caviar" one!)
    – Gagravarr
    Jan 16, 2014 at 14:52

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