The popular leisure and well-known carriers I can think of are:
Europe: TUI, Thomas Cook, Condor, and Jet2.
Canada: Sunwing and Air Transat.

Why doesn't this model work in the US? Would there be room for an airline to fly from the Northeast and Central-US to leisure destinations in Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean? I believe they would need to fly out of large metro areas (i.e. Boston, NYC, DC, Philadelphia, Chicago) in order to even possibly be profitable.

Allegiant is the only similar airline I can think of that has this business model, but they are strictly domestic right now. Would they ever expand in the future to become more like the aforementioned foreign carriers?

uh, Sun Country?...

There was a lengthy thread on this exact topic last year here. The competitive landscape, drivers, or players have not changed. No need for a new thread.

winginit wrote:

There was a lengthy thread on this exact topic last year here. The competitive landscape, drivers, or players have not changed. No need for a new thread.

Thank you! Definitely didn't come up when I searched...

Please delete if needed.

The U.S has had tons of such carriers. Just off the top of my head some examples - ATA, Sun Country, USA3000, North American, Miami Air, Swift, Rich Intl, ExpressOne, World, Tower, Sierra Pacific, Eastern, Xtra, etc.

The leisure carriers you mention primarily fly folks that purchased on tour packages and are charters in essence. Over the years some have evolved into LCC or seat only sales, but their historic bread and butter is tour operators, and the U.S. has had tons of airlines that can cater for such demand.

Isn't JetBlue a leisure airline? They have announced flying to London in the near future. Yes I know they have their Mint product, which is meant for business travelers, but there are still a lot of vacationers that currently fly JetBlue from JFK and BOS to Carribean destinations. When JetBlue started operations almost 20 years ago with a single A320 from JFK to FLL, the then CEO David Neeleman was seeing it as a New York based leisure carrier.

Southwest, JetBlue, Allegiant(does international charters) Frontier, Sun Country all fly internationally plus all the full service carriers so there is no need for that type of carrier in the US

winginit wrote:

There was a lengthy thread on this exact topic last year here. The competitive landscape, drivers, or players have not changed. No need for a new thread.

Longstanding a.net etiquette has been not to revive such a long dormant topic. Hence, the new topic, and I welcome it.

Yes, we do. We have American, United, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit, Alaska, etc. These all cater to leisure travelers.

Because in the UK and Canada people tend to buy their vacations as a package and in the USA they do not. Even though many airlines in the USA have started toward a specific niche they all eventually become mainstream, this happened Alaska, Southwest and JetBlue. SW flying to Hawaii and JB's London adventure are very big steps toward "mainstream".

This is less likely to happen with the new generations booking their own stuff and the whole flight/hotel/airbnb etc stuff available at the tip of your hands.

Even Air Transat knows this. The future of leisure charters is bleak.

For example, American Airlines offers vacation package deals to various vacation destinations plus cruises.

Why would Americans buy a package in the US? They know America.
The whole purpose of the European style package is so that all the foreign 'abnormalities' are taken care of. Though packages are no longer really needed, just purely due to marketing these days.

"Why doesn't America have an international leisure airline?"
I am sure there must be at least one, somewhere between Alaska and Patagonia?...

Sun Country qualifies.

Deltabravo1123 wrote:

The popular leisure and well-known carriers I can think of are:
Europe: TUI, Thomas Cook, Condor, and Jet2.
Canada: Sunwing and Air Transat.

Why doesn't this model work in the US? Would there be room for an airline to fly from the Northeast and Central-US to leisure destinations in Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean? I believe they would need to fly out of large metro areas (i.e. Boston, NYC, DC, Philadelphia, Chicago) in order to even possibly be profitable.

Allegiant is the only similar airline I can think of that has this business model, but they are strictly domestic right now. Would they ever expand in the future to become more like the aforementioned foreign carriers?

There's not as much need for American leisure carriers to go International - Those European carriers you cite would all need to go International for Sun/Beach holidays (around the Mediterranean) or Winter Ski Holidays (Alps/Pyrenees/Scandinavia), the Canadian ones for Sun/Beach holidays (Caribbean), although Canadian carriers can do Snow holidays in Whistler.

The US, bigger in area than Europe is big enough that they don't need to go international for any of that - Florida/California for Sun/Beach Holidays, the Rockies/Alaska for Skiing. So where's the incentive for Allegiant that you cite to go International?

Really the only large packaged holiday group that sells to Americans is Apple Leisure, through Apple Vacations. They currently fly people on Aeromexico, Allegiant, Volaris, VivaAerobus, and Sunwing charters and at times have used other airlines, including their own defunct airline, USA3000. Sun Country, does some charters for tour operators. Americans have vastly different travel habits than Europeans and to a certain extent Canadians, due to fewer people having paid time off, people preferring to make their own choices with air travel, hotels, meals etc. Wealthy Americans often plan their own or through corporate travel agents and often avoid even airlines like NK and F9, if they fly commercial.

I can add song (to a point as most of their flying was to leisure markets e.g TPA FLL MCO, LAS, LAS, RSW) kiwi international, air south, air Florida, hooters air, trans meridian, to the list.

Jetblue has pivoted away from the leisure model in the last decade but originally was founded as a leisure airline for New Yorkers. You could say Spirit out of FLL is a leisure carrier style operation all over the Carribean.

I'm always amazed at how many such operators there are in Europe and how we have pretty much none here. SY barely counts. Personally I'd rather leverage my credit card/frequent flyer points and "pay for" vacations that way, so naturally that means flying a legacy carrier. I wonder if the overwhelming credit card culture of the US encourages this as well. Still amazing to me how much harder it can be to use a credit card in Europe in comparison. Also helps that Europe has many fewer population centers. There are large chunks of the country that are totally ignored by G4/SY, yet those folks still go on vacations.

SierraPacific wrote:

Jetblue has pivoted away from the leisure model in the last decade but originally was founded as a leisure airline for New Yorkers. You could say Spirit out of FLL is a leisure carrier style operation all over the Carribean.

If you look at their (B6’s) route network, it is still largely geared toward where northeasterners want to go on vacation.

The U.S. deregulated first, and legacy carriers adapted to fly leisure travelers, too. (It took a lot of bankruptcies, but it got done.)

emuwarveteran wrote:

uh, Sun Country?...

True it was as were several others that have folded. Sun Country has rebranded from a leisure carrier to a cross between spirit & Frontier. 29-34" seat pitch all coach. They chose that rather than go under as a leisure airline.

Delta28L wrote:

Southwest, JetBlue, Allegiant(does international charters) Frontier, Sun Country all fly internationally plus all the full service carriers so there is no need for that type of carrier in the US

B6 has done charters to Cuba in the past, no need to do that style there now.

Could you not honestly ask why there are no leisure airlines in Asia? Mostly because we do not get as much vacation time every year & also the fact we all love the AirBNB & build our own stuff. Most American I know like to fly somewhere, rent a car and explore. We tend to hate the here is your flight, this is your hotel, here are you meal tickets that were chosen for you, & here is your daily tour bus schedule. We are a car centric nation. We do not really go for "Perillo Tours" and the like.

dfwjim1 wrote:

For example, American Airlines offers vacation package deals to various vacation destinations plus cruises.

Most of our major carriers do as there is a small market for that. Why loose the money to another carrier. But they work with tour operators on most of them to cut the airlines cost to set it up.

N766UA wrote:

Because we’re actually productive as a nation. We don’t have A330-loads of people with double-digit weeks of vacation to burn on an island somewhere...

Hahaha wow. Sure we're productive, yet most Americans will work their butts off and never be able to afford an actual vacation.

rbavfan wrote:

Could you not honestly ask why there are no leisure airlines in Asia? Mostly because we do not get as much vacation time every year & also the fact we all love the AirBNB & build our own stuff. Most American I know like to fly somewhere, rent a car and explore. We tend to hate the here is your flight, this is your hotel, here are you meal tickets that were chosen for you, & here is your daily tour bus schedule. We are a car centric nation. We do not really go for "Perillo Tours" and the like.

While I don't disagree, you have to acknowledge how ironic it is that so many Americans are obsessed with cruises. Cruises are basically no different than the average package tour - you're taking the exact same vacation as 3000 other people - wow, how cool. Rich folks with nothing better to do even fly all the way to Europe to take a glorified package tour known as a cruise.

9w748capt wrote:

N766UA wrote:

Because we’re actually productive as a nation. We don’t have A330-loads of people with double-digit weeks of vacation to burn on an island somewhere...

Hahaha wow. Sure we're productive, yet most Americans will work their butts off and never be able to afford an actual vacation.

most americans (60%) don't even have a passport to take a vacation on this hypothetical international leisure airline.

9w748capt wrote:

N766UA wrote:

Because we’re actually productive as a nation. We don’t have A330-loads of people with double-digit weeks of vacation to burn on an island somewhere...

Hahaha wow. Sure we're productive, yet most Americans will work their butts off and never be able to afford an actual vacation.

Especially ironic given that some of those countries with the most days off are also the most productive, more so than the US in many cases:

https://www.indy100.com/article/the-mos ... JWJ1Vvw8Pb

VSMUT wrote:

9w748capt wrote:

N766UA wrote:

Because we’re actually productive as a nation. We don’t have A330-loads of people with double-digit weeks of vacation to burn on an island somewhere...

Hahaha wow. Sure we're productive, yet most Americans will work their butts off and never be able to afford an actual vacation.

Especially ironic given that some of those countries with the most days off are also the most productive, more so than the US in many cases:

https://www.indy100.com/article/the-mos ... JWJ1Vvw8Pb

Great point. I for one would have no issue living in a country that paid it's citizens a fair wage with guaranteed vacation time, and actually provided them with basic health care (among other things). Wow that sounds horrible. And yet Donnie wonders why more people don't immigrate here from Norway, LOL.

LOL at everyone mentioning Sun Country when B6, WN, NK, and F9 all apply more.

Also because here in the US (unfortunately), we don't value vacation time like other countries. We just work until we die. What miserable lives we lead.

American 767 wrote:

Isn't JetBlue a leisure airline? They have announced flying to London in the near future. Yes I know they have their Mint product, which is meant for business travelers, but there are still a lot of vacationers that currently fly JetBlue from JFK and BOS to Carribean destinations. When JetBlue started operations almost 20 years ago with a single A320 from JFK to FLL, the then CEO David Neeleman was seeing it as a New York based leisure carrier.

I wouldn't call B6 a leisure airline now, although they do have an all-inclusive package vacation division. Rather, I'd call them a much more efficient version of legacy EA. (That said, B6 1 is still JFK to FLL.)

The other factor is: there are good domestic destinations in the USA for leisure that don't necessarily require international travel. Also, US travelers tend to be more cost conscious, booking airline tickets, ground transportation, and hotels separately.

The closest that the USA has to a largely leisure airline is G4, which is vertically integrated with owned resorts, but G4 only flies domestic routes.

Personally as an American, I don’t like having my vacation/holiday “spoon fed” to me by some leisure company. Like a lot of Americans and some Europeans, I’m more independently minded when I travel. I also prefer flexibility. Leisure carriers thrive in an environment where a significant portion of the population has a certain degree of what I like to call “travel anxiety” and prefer to minimize the risk of abnormalities popping up on their holidays, especially as they pass the age of 30/have families.

Summed up, the reasons are quite clear. Of course, we do have some "leisure airlines" as described in Allegiant and Sun Country for example, but the main reasons we do not have the type of leisure "package" carriers that are ubiquitous in Europe are:

1) Vacation time is valuable to Americans...we don't get much, so the amount that we get, we want full control of. This does vary upon the destination (i.e. Apple Vacations and Mexico vacations, etc.)
2) Size. Blatantly put, the US is a large landmass and covers the basic types of vacations that are taken...the difference is we call them LCC or ULCC carriers, as they are primarily domestic carriers.
3) Work rules. People are expensive to employ in the US, whether they be pilots, flight attendants, or airport staff. As such, when traveling internationally (e.g. Europe) it is more economical for a European leisure carrier (ex. Norwegian, Condor) to operate the flights as their pay is below what a US-based crew would comma

jfk777 wrote:

Because in the UK and Canada people tend to buy their vacations as a package and in the USA they do not. Even though many airlines in the USA have started toward a specific niche they all eventually become mainstream, this happened Alaska, Southwest and JetBlue. SW flying to Hawaii and JB's London adventure are very big steps toward "mainstream".

Also, several years ago Delta, and I think United as well, jumped heavily into the charter business, especially sports charters, and that cut the legs out from under several charter carriers like TransMeridian. With the economy strong again, DL has pulled back from much of that, as witnessed by the abandonment of several scheduled NFL/NBA charters last year, due to a shortage of pilots and airframes.

Ziyulu wrote:

Yes, we do. We have American, United, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit, Alaska, etc. These all cater to leisure travelers.

Agree. In the US, ULCC airlines are making a push to cater to upper end leisure travelers and biz pax (see spirits bundle prices with the low cost Big Seat add on), while legacy airlines are chasing infrequent leisure fliers (basic Econ).

You guys are missing the obvious answer.
International travel (EXCLUDING Mexico and Canada) by Americans to Europe, Asia, et. al is mainly done by upper middle class and upper classes.

The real middle class and lower classes in America don’t go to Europe because of how expensive it is and also due to lack of interest. A typical cop and secretary couple in Des Moines goes to Florida or California and maybe in retirement goes to England.

So therefore the people wanting to go to Europe are the ones who can pay regular coach and other add ons and don’t need budget airlines. Plus, if booked in advance, reasonable fares can be had on AA or Delta or UA, etc.

Canadians and Brits love to go internationally, have gap years, and fly no matter if they are relatively poor or young. Hence the Thomas Cooks and stuff.

It’s largely cultural.

texdravid wrote:

You guys are missing the obvious answer.
International travel (EXCLUDING Mexico and Canada) by Americans to Europe, Asia, et. al is mainly done by upper middle class and upper classes.

The real middle class and lower classes in America don’t go to Europe because of how expensive it is and also due to lack of interest. A typical cop and secretary couple in Des Moines goes to Florida or California and maybe in retirement goes to England.

So therefore the people wanting to go to Europe are the ones who can pay regular coach and other add ons and don’t need budget airlines. Plus, if booked in advance, reasonable fares can be had on AA or Delta or UA, etc.

Canadians and Brits love to go internationally, have gap years, and fly no matter if they are relatively poor or young. Hence the Thomas Cooks and stuff.

It’s largely cultural.

Cultural and geographic.

Brit's holding passport: 75%
Canadians holding passport: 60%
Americans holding passport: 36%

robsaw wrote:

texdravid wrote:

You guys are missing the obvious answer.
International travel (EXCLUDING Mexico and Canada) by Americans to Europe, Asia, et. al is mainly done by upper middle class and upper classes.

The real middle class and lower classes in America don’t go to Europe because of how expensive it is and also due to lack of interest. A typical cop and secretary couple in Des Moines goes to Florida or California and maybe in retirement goes to England.

So therefore the people wanting to go to Europe are the ones who can pay regular coach and other add ons and don’t need budget airlines. Plus, if booked in advance, reasonable fares can be had on AA or Delta or UA, etc.

Canadians and Brits love to go internationally, have gap years, and fly no matter if they are relatively poor or young. Hence the Thomas Cooks and stuff.

It’s largely cultural.

Cultural and geographic.

Brit's holding passport: 75%
Canadians holding passport: 60%
Americans holding passport: 36%

The geography is important both on the point about "cultural issues" and on the larger question in the thread, I think. Consider this statistic:

Brits who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Canadians who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Americans who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 0%

robsaw wrote:

texdravid wrote:

You guys are missing the obvious answer.
International travel (EXCLUDING Mexico and Canada) by Americans to Europe, Asia, et. al is mainly done by upper middle class and upper classes.

The real middle class and lower classes in America don’t go to Europe because of how expensive it is and also due to lack of interest. A typical cop and secretary couple in Des Moines goes to Florida or California and maybe in retirement goes to England.

So therefore the people wanting to go to Europe are the ones who can pay regular coach and other add ons and don’t need budget airlines. Plus, if booked in advance, reasonable fares can be had on AA or Delta or UA, etc.

Canadians and Brits love to go internationally, have gap years, and fly no matter if they are relatively poor or young. Hence the Thomas Cooks and stuff.

It’s largely cultural.

Cultural and geographic.

Brit's holding passport: 75%
Canadians holding passport: 60%
Americans holding passport: 36%

I actually didn’t realize that many Americans lacked a passport. But when I think of it, I am the only one of my friends and coworkers that regularly travels out of the country several times per year.

Cubsrule wrote:

robsaw wrote:

texdravid wrote:

You guys are missing the obvious answer.
International travel (EXCLUDING Mexico and Canada) by Americans to Europe, Asia, et. al is mainly done by upper middle class and upper classes.

The real middle class and lower classes in America don’t go to Europe because of how expensive it is and also due to lack of interest. A typical cop and secretary couple in Des Moines goes to Florida or California and maybe in retirement goes to England.

So therefore the people wanting to go to Europe are the ones who can pay regular coach and other add ons and don’t need budget airlines. Plus, if booked in advance, reasonable fares can be had on AA or Delta or UA, etc.

Canadians and Brits love to go internationally, have gap years, and fly no matter if they are relatively poor or young. Hence the Thomas Cooks and stuff.

It’s largely cultural.

Cultural and geographic.

Brit's holding passport: 75%
Canadians holding passport: 60%
Americans holding passport: 36%

The geography is important both on the point about "cultural issues" and on the larger question in the thread, I think. Consider this statistic:

Brits who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Canadians who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Americans who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 0%

Haha true. Rich Americans flock to Florida, California, and Hawaii first, before Mexico or the Caribbean. Every time we go to Thailand or somewhere far away, people ask "why not just Mexico." Americans are just much more close-minded overall.

MIflyer12 wrote:

The U.S. deregulated first, and legacy carriers adapted to fly leisure travelers, too. (It took a lot of bankruptcies, but it got done.)

And prior to the U.S. deregulation there were some U.S. leisure airlines like
- Transamerica Airlines, resp. Trans International Airlines (TIA)
- Overseas National Airlines (ONA)
- Saturn Airlines
that flew international charter flights, both for tourists and the armed forces, but also cargo.

This was also the time of the travel clubs having their own planes like
- Denver Ports of Call

9w748capt wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

robsaw wrote:

Cultural and geographic.

Brit's holding passport: 75%
Canadians holding passport: 60%
Americans holding passport: 36%

The geography is important both on the point about "cultural issues" and on the larger question in the thread, I think. Consider this statistic:

Brits who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Canadians who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Americans who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 0%

Haha true. Rich Americans flock to Florida, California, and Hawaii first, before Mexico or the Caribbean. Every time we go to Thailand or somewhere far away, people ask "why not just Mexico." Americans are just much more close-minded overall.

I think it depends some on where you are. In Tennessee, where I am, the non-US Caribbean is much more popular that Hawaii because of the geography. For somebody in Seattle, it’s hard to make a good case to go to the beach anywhere but Hawaii.

9w748capt wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

robsaw wrote:

Cultural and geographic.

Brit's holding passport: 75%
Canadians holding passport: 60%
Americans holding passport: 36%

The geography is important both on the point about "cultural issues" and on the larger question in the thread, I think. Consider this statistic:

Brits who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Canadians who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Americans who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 0%

Haha true. Rich Americans flock to Florida, California, and Hawaii first, before Mexico or the Caribbean. Every time we go to Thailand or somewhere far away, people ask "why not just Mexico." Americans are just much more close-minded overall.

I wouldn't say its that most Americans are close-minded as much as it is that they may not be able to afford to travel internationally. It could also be that most don't get more than 2 weeks of vacation a year so it would make it difficult to travel far in that short of a time span. My wife and I are fortunate to have jobs, her a teacher and I'm an ATC, that allow us to have much more than 2 weeks of vacation a year so we try to spend no less than 10 days to go to the Caribbean or 15 days to go to Europe. I will say though that when my family and I are in the Caribbean, SXM and Anguilla mostly, we only run in to Canadians.

9w748capt wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

robsaw wrote:

Cultural and geographic.

Brit's holding passport: 75%
Canadians holding passport: 60%
Americans holding passport: 36%

The geography is important both on the point about "cultural issues" and on the larger question in the thread, I think. Consider this statistic:

Brits who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Canadians who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 100%
Americans who need a passport to get to a decent beach: 0%

Haha true. Rich Americans flock to Florida, California, and Hawaii first, before Mexico or the Caribbean. Every time we go to Thailand or somewhere far away, people ask "why not just Mexico." Americans are just much more close-minded overall.

Not really close-minded, just time-sensitive. Americans know places like Thailand are far away and take a lot longer (24 hours and a stop in NRT, or wherever) to get to Thailand than 3-4 hours to get to CUN from most of the mainland US. And as stated, the landmass in the US is huge and encompasses many kinds of vacation styles, mountains (Colorado), beaches (Florida and California), cosmopolitan cities (NYC and Chicago), Vegas, National Parks, etc... Hawaii is arguably as good as Thailand (as far as beaches are concerned) and Americans dont need a passport. Americans also love to drive since its cheaper than flying and you can make the round trip drive into a vacation in its own right.

I only travel outside the country because I have flight benefits to do so. That said you can make any trip to anywhere in the world affordable (I spent 4 days in Berlin and Munich and did my whole trip, including hostels and easyjet flight, for less than €500), but it doesnt help when the means to get there can be more expensive than what you do at your destination.

9w748capt wrote:

rbavfan wrote:

Could you not honestly ask why there are no leisure airlines in Asia? Mostly because we do not get as much vacation time every year & also the fact we all love the AirBNB & build our own stuff. Most American I know like to fly somewhere, rent a car and explore. We tend to hate the here is your flight, this is your hotel, here are you meal tickets that were chosen for you, & here is your daily tour bus schedule. We are a car centric nation. We do not really go for "Perillo Tours" and the like.

While I don't disagree, you have to acknowledge Who can't love that how ironic it is that so many Americans are obsessed with cruises. Cruises are basically no different than the average package tour - you're taking the exact same vacation as 3000 other people - wow, how cool. Rich folks with nothing better to do even fly all the way to Europe to take a glorified package tour known as a Cruise.

cruises are , Especially themed cruises like the "Smooth Jazz cruise" The Blue note Jazz ,Cruise , the Jazz Cruise or the Dave Koz smooth Jazz Cruise. 7 days or Music and Partying? Without the Kids? Who can't love that? For the Kids? Disney Cruises, Carnival Cruises. It's all Good!

Yes the paucity of Americans having passports is just staggering!

I remember one of the things asked of Sarah Palin in 2008 was if she had a passport.
In 2000, GW Bush was widely considered not to have left the country.

Lastly, nowadays you need a passport to go to Mexico from the US. However, when I flew IAH-CUN in 2004 on pCO 90% of the passengers were just holding their birth certificates as proof of their citizenship!! Unbelievable.

dfwjim1 wrote:

For example, American Airlines offers vacation package deals to various vacation destinations plus cruises.

I've gotten some really good deals also. J class international. You can even get some vacation fares that were once open seats that disappear on the main site for booking then I check the vacation site and can find them.

texdravid wrote:

Yes the paucity of Americans having passports is just staggering!

I remember one of the things asked of Sarah Palin in 2008 was if she had a passport.
In 2000, GW Bush was widely considered not to have left the country.

Why so unbelievable? No need to look down on the fact. There are lots of reasons why many Americans don't have passports. There are tons of benefits to traveling and they are missing that (I try and get all my friends/family to travel). You can definitely get a full life and experiences just staying in north america. Its sounds great for a comedy bit to make fun of Americans for many not having a passport however a little narrow minded. It's ironic because that's the premise of the comment " Unbelievable"