We were hoping to be able to spend our summer holidays in Tunisia this year, staying in our "holiday home" with all the kids (as my stepchildren haven't been with us for a couple of years now). But when we saw the prices for the flights, we were absolutely shocked! For a flight only from Manchester to Monastir during the summer holidays, the price is TRIPLE that which my husband paid to go last month, and double that of going the week before (thus missing a week of school).

Can you believe this???

I had hoped to take a photo of the websites we'd looked at in order to demonstrate these prices to you, but unfortunately it seems there are no longer flights available to Tunisia during the summer holidays (if I can get these up in the future, I will edit this post to include them).

Honestly, I am shocked that airlines can do this. I wouldn't want to take the children out of school to go on holiday, as they'd miss too much of their education. But the difference in cost for us is well over £1000 for the flights. Money which we would have wanted for spending money while we were there.

Travel-Rants.com includes a post about this, demonstrating an example of the rise in costs during the summer holidays most parents face. It's awful that holiday operators manage to get away with this,. Travel-rants suggests we band together to put pressure on MP's and airlines in the hope of changing this situation.

Unfortunately, we'll have to forgo Tunisia this summer. I am rather disappointed, as I was looking forward to seeing my Tunisian sisters (in law) again, and spending time away from this awful weather in the sun. I guess we'll have to look a little closer to home for something much cheaper instead. Either that, or we'll go in the Autumn half term instead, though from what I've seen so far, the costs will rise slightly that week too...

Technorati Tags: school+holidays | prices | tour+operators | flights