... passenger travel. Table 1 shows available capacity by airline (capacity expressed as Available Seat Kilometres ASK's) the fact that six of the top ten UK airlines are charter carriers illustrates the size and importance of the charter airlines in the UK market. Table 1: UK Airline size in terms of ASK's Airline ASK's (000,000) Passenger Load Factor Percentage of Total ASK's British Airways Plc 134 75% 41% Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd 36 76% 11% My Travel Airways UK* 24 90% 7% Britannia Airways* 20 91% 6% Easyjet Airline Company Ltd** 20 80% 6% First Choice Airways Ltd* 18 90% 5% Thomas Cook Airlines Ltd* 15 92% 4% Monarch Airlines* 14 86% 4% BMI British Midland 12 68% 4% Excel Airways Ltd* 6 87% 2% * Charter Carriers ** no-frills scheduled carrier Source: (Civil Aviation Authority, 2004) The charter carriers included in the above table represented 28% of the total ASK's in the British market. This supports the fact that the charter industry is of great size and importance in the UK. Also shown is that the charter carriers in particular achieve very high passenger load factors. A feature of charter airlines is their low costs; this in combination with ...

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