The most expensive part of travel is often air travel. And therefore, the topic of selection of cheap plane tickets is relevant for any independent tourist. There are several ways to make air travel cheaper.
Airline promotions
Often, the airline companies themselves offer their customers attractive promotions and significant discounts on air tickets. You can track such offers by subscribing to the newsletter from companies relevant to the tourist. You can also periodically visit thematic sites like Skyscanner or Aviasales, where messages about discounts from different airlines are published in a special section.
For those who are not particularly friendly with the Internet, you can simply call the offices of airlines in your city to inquire about current promotions. However, it should be borne in mind that carriers will never miss their profit, and therefore the lowest prices are usually offered for the most irrelevant destinations at the moment, and vice versa. For example, in December and February, which are considered the peak of the tourist season, cheap flights to Bangkok are not offered. Similarly, in summer there are no cheap tickets to Sochi, etc.
Charters and Tour Packages
Charter flights are flights specially organized for the transportation of tourists, for which tickets cannot be purchased in the usual way, i.e. through flight booking sites, ticket offices, etc. However, some travel agencies and tour operators offer "extra" seats in charter aircraft without buying the tour package itself. The cost of such flights is often significantly less than on regular regular flights.
To find tickets for charter flights, you can contact travel agents, in the offices of tour operators. Also, seats in some charters can now be booked via the Internet on special sites like charter24.ru, biletix.ru, etc.
It is interesting that sometimes it is much cheaper to buy a full tour package, which includes air travel, transfer and hotel accommodation, than buying separate round-trip plane tickets. Therefore, it is worth comparing prices for hot tours to the desired cities and for regular flights. Perhaps an independent trip in this case will not be the most profitable option.
Low-cost companies
In many countries, there are airlines that operate in the most budget segment - Indonesian AirAsia, Thai NokAir, German AirBerlin, etc. It is they who, and without any discounts and promotions, often offer tickets at the most democratic prices.
Unfortunately, low-cost airlines do not take root well on the Russian market. So, the projects SkyExpress and AviaNova have sunk into oblivion, unable to withstand the onslaught of competitors. However, at the end of 2013, the third Russian low-cost airline, Dobrolet, a subsidiary of Aeroflot, was launched. The cost of air tickets from this carrier is 15-20% lower than the average prices for flights within Russia.
