Back in the day, long before EZY and FR, Britain’s charter airlines ruled the skies with a business model based on vertical integration. This was airline, tour operator and hotel chain owned by a single entity. So you had Thomson/Britannia, First Choice Holidays/Airways, Thomas Cook tour operations/ Thomas Cook Airlines, Cosmos/Monarch and Airtours/Direct Holidays/Airtours International Airlines.
All good and well but not every tour operator had their own airline or the capability to fill a whole aircraft. This is where an Air Broker came in to plug the gap.They sometimes chartered a whole plane selling the seats to a myriad of tour operators, a process known as a Consolidator, or purchased seats on a block basis from charter airlines direct.
One of the largest of these companies was Goldcrest who worked with tour operator Inspirations and Caledonian Airways, Peach Air, Air Ops Europe, Air Scandic and Sabre/Excel Airways. Another was Owners Abroad, a major client of Dan Air London subsequently transforming itself into a tour operator, launching Air 2000 and purchasing its rival Viking/Unijet along with its own airline Air UK Leisure/Leisure International Airways. Avro was owned by Cosmos and worked with Monarch and a variety of UK and European charter airlines. Thomson/Britannia had their own in house booking team but on a much smaller scale than their competitors given their critical mass.
Airlines such as Aviaco, Air Malta, Air Columbus, Air Europa, Air Atlantis and Spantax had General Sales Agents (GSA) who filled the same role as the broking houses in the UK dealing with both large and small tour operators.
So what happened to this business and does it survive today? Well no. Many of the seat requirements are filled by EZY and FR with small tour operators buying seats while both TUI Jet2 have the capability to broker seats on a block basis to small tour operators and, in the case of TUI, the capability to purchase third party seats from the likes of easyJet, Corendon, British Airways and so on.
So a wee bit of history on a Tuesday morning. I still have copies of some of the flying programmes from atuk days in my archives.