Package Holidays and Charter Airlines Companies in Spain (2004–2021): The End of a Fordist Pair?

Abstract

[EN] Since the early days of the twenty-first century, academic literature has forecast the disappearance of charter airlines on short and mid-haul routes and their replacement with low-cost operators due to the decline in package holidays. This paper examines the said process, taking a quantitative methodological approach that calls into question the equivalence typically made between non-scheduled air traffic and charter traffic. The results show a less acute decline in charter airlines than the figures indicate for non-scheduled traffic at Spanish airports where charter companies predominated prior to liberalization, albeit with notable differences among these airports due to various different factors. This decline in charter airlines has gone hand in hand with a re-growth in package holidays, observable over the last few years, highlighting the growing disassociation between them. The greater flexibility that is now afforded by tour operators and the growing hybridization of airline business models, following the liberalization of air transport, are the main reasons that account for this dissociation.