Air transport

Of the many forms of transport used by tourists, it is the jet aircraft which has captured the imagination, since it has opened many formerly remote areas as holiday destinations. It must be emphasized that only a small percentage of the world’s population have ever used an airline, and even in developed countries surface modes of transport carry many more times their volume of passengers. Air transport has done most to bring about changes in the nature of international tourism and the structure of travel industry since the 1950s.

The airlines are now very prominent in the tourist industry and it is important to remember that there are two kinds of airline operations, scheduled and nonscheduled. A scheduled airline operates on fixed routes at fixed times according to a timetable that is available to the public.

A nonscheduled airline operates on routes at a time when there is a demand for the service. The nonscheduled airline is, in other words a charter operation that rents an aircraft. The competition between the two has been very tense.

As seating capacity increased with introduction of newer, larger and faster planes, the airlines were able to offer a percentage of their seats for sale through travel agents or tour operators. They introduced special fares and by means of these special fares, they were able to increase their business substantially. The greatest growth in tourism began with the introduction of these ITX fares, as they are called, in 1950’s and 1960’s.

The nonscheduled airlines got a start largely as a result of government business. In addition to transporting supplies or military personnel, the nonscheduled airlines chartered (rented) entire flights to groups that were traveling to the same destination – businessmen and their wives attending a convention, for example, members of a music society attending the Festival.

Charter inclusive tours were sold at even lover fares than the inclusive tours on scheduled airlines. All transportation is subject to regulation by government, but the airlines are among the most completely regulated of all carriers. The routes they can fly, the number of flights and many other matters are controlled by means of bilateral agreements between different countries in the case of international airlines.

Time zones

Time zones result from the earth's rotation relative to the sun; at any given moment at one locality it is noon, while half the world away to the east or west it is midnight. This means that for every 15° of longitude the time is advanced or put back by one hour; places that lie east of the Greenwich Meridian have a later hour, those to the west an earlier hour due to this apparent motion of the sun.

It was primarily the development of the railways which made it necessary to standardize timetables, using an international system of time zones based on the Greenwich Meridian. Since 1884 the world has been divided into 24 time zones in which standard time is arbitrarily applied to wide belts on either side of a particular meridian which is usually a multiple of 15° Travellers passing from one time zone to another will therefore adjust their watches by exactly one hour . Countries in the Western Hemisphere have time zones which are designated with a minus number as so many hours 'slow' behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). GMT is the standard time on the Greenwich Meridian passing through London. Countries in the Eastern Hemisphewre have time zones designated with a plus number as so many hours 'fast' on GMT. Only when it is noon on the Greenwich Meridian is it the same day worldwide; at all other times there is a 24-hour difference between each side of the 180° meridian. In 1884 the International Date Line was established as the boundary where each day actually begins at midnight and immediately spreads westwards. It corresponds to the 180° meridian.