what's the actual difference between charters & scheduled services these days ?

[Andrew Johnson]

Not much from what I can gather.

Can anyone shed any light on the actual differences ?

Is there a difference between domestic & international charters ?

[Ash W]

In which sense? From an operational perspective, from a passenger perspective or something else?

[Skip Fulton]

Regular Public Transport (scheduled service)
These are flights between fixed ports, based on a published timetable and tickets are open for the public to purchase. Operators are required to be licenced to operate RPT by CASA (or relevant body) and have systems and programs in place to meet the RPT standard.

Subsidised RPT
This is RPT but where a government body or company agrees to purchase X seats on every flight (regardless if that many people actually fly) or over a group of flights. This is done particularly on routes which may not be profitable for an operator.

Charter
A person or company pays an operator to operate the flight from A to B. They are essentially hiring the entire aircraft and its crew. Tickets are not sold by the operator, and flights are generally random and not to a published schedule. The person or company paying determines the passengers, cargo, etc.

So as Ash said, it depends a lot on the context.

As a passenger you may not notice a lot of difference. From an operational perspective, the crew flight the aircraft the same way. It is more behind the scenes where the differences are and on the commercial side.

Conceptually there is no difference between domestic and international charter. However, most bilateral agreements do state that an operate can only operate a certain number of charter flights between certain countries/ports before they must apply for rights under the agreement (ie: become RPT).

[Andrew Johnson]

thanks for that.

So the charter that the Wallabies were on to NZL & back, could have been sold to the public without restrictions, as long as bilateral agreement allows it, or is trans-Tasman "open season" ?

[Skip Fulton]

Hi Andrew,

It depends how the flight was operated. If it was simply a re-timed RPT flight then yes tickets could have been sold. If it was an actual charter flight, then sales of the remaining seats would have been up to whoever chartered it (eg: ARU). It is not uncommon for these extra seats to be given away to sports sponsors etc.

A hypothetical example: AFL team Gold Coast Suns is playing Hawthorn in Launceston. The flight OOL-LST isn't operated as a normal RPT service thus is run as a charter. The Suns take 40 seats on an Embraer leaving the other 60 free. It would be up to the Suns and/or the AFL to sell or give away these extra 60 seats. This is often where you seen the AFL and Clubs offering special deals to 'fly with the team'.

Charter flights often have dedicated flight numbers as well, usually in the high thousands (5000 and above), however there are others on this board who will be able to give better advice on the allocation of flight numbers.