European charter airlines and low-cost carriers are slowly but steadily adding destinations in countries just outside of Europe. While Ryanair and most charter airlines—the latter feeding into holiday packages—fly to a range of destinations in Morocco, these are but one demonstration of the latest frontier. Among other routes of note, the Russian low-cost carrier SkyExpress flies east of the Urals to Tyumen, several charter airline fly to destinations in Tunisia, Transavia among other airlines flies to Egypt, and tuifly and Thomsonfly jet to Tel Aviv.

As of November, Aqaba (on Jordan’s Red Sea coast) will be added to the slate of midhaul Europe-adjacent destinations reachable by a low-cost carrier. JetairFly, the Belgian wing of TUI, will be flying to Aqaba from November.

The Red Sea resort town draws divers and sunlovers and is a stone’s throw from Eilat, Israel. It’s also got a popular Turkish bath on hand, and is about two hours south of Petra by car.

We found a January roundtrip from Brussels to Aqaba for €360. Not impossible, but we’ll be watching to see if these fares go down a bit.

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