Plan ahead and book your flights for next winter now

It might seem a little early for those holidaymakers still looking forward to next summer's holiday, but airlines have already started selling flights for winter 2010/2011.

Early bookers are being offered a choice of flights to traditional winter hotsposts including the Canary Islands and Alicante in Spain with Monarch Airlines (www.monarch.co.uk)

Flights from Manchester and Birmingham have already gone on sale and the airline will start selling flights from Gatwick and Luton on Friday (December 18).

Monarch will have new services from Luton to Gran Canaria and increased frequencies to Lanzarote, Tenerife and Alicante next winter.

Liz Savage, managing director of Monarch's scheduled services, said: We are delighted to have our winter 2010-11 schedule on sale ahead of many of our major competitors, which provides customers with the opportunity to plan ahead and grab a great deal on flights to their favourite winter sun destinations.

Monarch is not the first airline to go on sale with winter 2010/11 flights, however. Jet2.com beat it to it when it started selling its new winter flights from East Midlands to Tenerife earlier this week.

Jet2.com's winter services from Lanzarote from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle and to Tenerife from Belfast Blackpool, Leeds/Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle will go on sale soon.

Jet2.com fares start at £59.99 one way, including taxes.

Booking early makes sense for holidaymakers who know where and when they want to go as scheduled air fares tend to go up closer to the date of departure. Those who book so far in advance would be wise to buy travel insurance at the same time - though not necessarily from the airline - to provide cancellation cover.

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