Carol Wingers: The people who fly to avoid Christmas
They’re the Brits for whom Christmas Day never comes.
Thanks to long flight times and differing time zones, some airline passengers are now choosing to leave the UK on Christmas Eve – with the deliberate intention of avoiding Christmas Day all together.
So popular have the Christmas-free flights become that travel experts are now calling the passenger trend “carol wingers†– those who are literally taking flight from carols and all things linked to Christmas.
Virgin Atlantic’s Anna Catchpole says, “These are the people for whom pulling crackers and opening Christmas presents can represent the worst of all possible worlds.
“The pressure of Christmas can be so powerful that the only place they feel they can avoid it is at 35,000 feet heading east across the International Date Line. They know there’ll be no sing song merrily up high.“
Passengers leaving for Australia and similar destinations late on Christmas Eve miss out on Christmas Day entirely, arriving at their destinations on Boxing Day instead.
Virgin Atlantic said for decades these flights were unpopular because no one wanted to miss Christmas Day. “Now, however, the flights have become highly sought after – for precisely the same reason.â€
This year Virgin Atlantic has discovered that flights departing for Australia on Christmas Eve are 95% full, “whereas usually this is a flight that passengers desperately try to avoidâ€.
Virgin Atlantic initially attributed the rise to substantial discount on airfares – by avoiding Christmas passengers can save approximately £200 per person.
However, customer research indicates that Carol Wingers, who have chosen to avoid Christmas, can now make up to as much as 48 percent of each passenger list.
Virgin Atlantic says it now has a dilemma: should it hold Christmas celebrations on board to cheer up those passengers who will miss Christmas Day but have no option but to fly on that day?
Or should they treat it as a normal flight, with little acknowledgement of the Big Day, to keep Carol Wingers happy?
The airline is opting to introduce a little Christmas spirit onboard.
“We will be looking into how to make our Christmas Day flights a little more festive over the next couple of weeks,†said Catchpole.
Ian Jarrett
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