guykb

OK, so this is a longshot, but does anyone have any idea when the budget carriers are likely to post their winter schedules. I want to book some flights for Christmas/New Year and none of these carriers have any flights available past September or October.

I tried contacting the carriers themselves, but they just said 'keep checking the website' (Vueling) or no response at all (Easyjet)

I wonder if anyone has better intelligence than this?

WillTravel

Many EasyJet flights are available for booking for late December. What routes are you looking at? I'm sure they will be up at least 90 days in advance, and probably sooner.

Intrepid1

The EasyJet schedule through March 2006 is now up.

Where2Travel

Easyjet has only released part of their winter schedule so far. I expect the rest will follow over the next few weeks. They release the new dates for all their routes in batches over the course of about three weeks usually.

Patrick

I've been looking at various schedules for BMI for next spring. They seem to allow you to book way ahead and at great prices. Although I'm a big fan of Easy Jet, I'm finding some better times and better arrival or destination airports than with Easy Jet (particularly Heathrow).

Intrepid1

Did I MISS something on the EasyJet site, Where2Travel? When I pulled up the booking option it distinctly gave the option for up to March 2006.

Where2Travel

Intrepid1 - did you actually try to input any flights? I know the drop-down date boxes show until March 2006 because SOME routes have released flights up to then but not many as yet.

Try picking any flight from London Gatwick for example with a date after October and you'll get a pop-up saying seats can only be booked on this route until 29 October 2005 etc.

guykb

Thanks everyone - you are quite right, Easyjet now has their winter schedule up. I just booked flights from Paris to Madrid on the Friday before New Years Eve. I was very concerned that I would miss out on seats because of the timing of the flight. Sadly, they have increased the cost of a ticket from the usual 25 euros on this flight to 51 euros. Am I right in assuming that the ticket price on Easyjet doesn't get cheaper, only more expensive?

Unfortunately the scheules for Vueling and Atlas Blue are not up yet. Hopefully they will follow Easyjet's lead soon!

WillTravel

On rare occasions, EasyJet has a sale with very limited seats and has cheaper tickets. But for a holiday flight, that is very unlikely.

It's not necessarily the case that EasyJet upped the flight price for this date, although it may look that way. What might have happened is that they loaded the standard X number of seats at the usual low fare, those were snapped up very quickly, leaving you with seats at the higher prices. If you didn't try buying them the instant EasyJet loaded them, it's hard to say.

Patrick

Easy Jet used to guarantee that their prices never go down, only up. But a couple years ago they changed that policy and now do admit that it is possible they will reduce ticket fares on some flights.
On the other hand, for a very popular flight, the liklihood of that happening is pretty miniscule.