Regional airlines could face a five-year period of consolidation as they are out-muscled by bigger rivals. Speaking at the Route Europe 2016 Strategy Summit in Kraków, Poland, Iberia Regional/Air Nostrum network planning and scheduling director Miguel Oliver said in the last 20 years in Spain, the country has lost 20 carriers.
The new routes will commence from the start of the summer schedules in late March 2016 with the introduction of twice weekly flights to both John Lennon Airport in Liverpool and Keflavik International Airport, serving Reykjavik from March 27, 2016 and a weekly flight to Ibiza from June 18, 2016 to September 17, 2016.
In an official statement to the media, the airport describes the event as “the meeting place” for the world's airport/airline route development industry and confirmed it “has been successful at generating new business as a direct consequence of attending this and its European equivalent event in the past”.
The airports, including Newcastle, Birmingham and Bristol have commissioned new research into the costs of devolving APD, which states that without policies to mitigate the effects of APD cuts in Scotland and Wales, English regional airports could see their passenger numbers fall by around 2.2 million by 2025.
Like many UK airports, Liverpool John Lennon Airport has had a strong 2015 and recorded its seventh consecutive month of growth during August, with year-on-year passenger growth of 7.24 per cent. Total passengers for August exceeded 470,000 with increases in available seat capacity and strong load factor performance contributing to the impressive growth this year.
This will be the airline’s fourth route from Liverpool, and will complement Flybe’s existing services to the Isle of Man, Belfast City and Amsterdam which commences on September 7, 2015.
From October 23, 2015, the Irish carrier will commence 16 weekly flights between Liverpool and Dublin on a 174 seat Airbus A320, offering ideal connections onto Aer Lingus flights to North America via Dublin.
Bristol Airport and Liverpool John Lennon Airport have this week revealed the key role the Routes Europe forum has played in recent new routes introduced to the two UK airports. Senior management from both airports will be attending this year’s event in Aberdeen with colleagues from local development agencies as they seek to further enhance connectivity.
The new service will commence from September 7, 2015 with up to three flights per day, departing early morning, lunchtime and late afternoon and timed to coincide with many convenient onward long-haul connections available through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport hub.
CSA Czech Airlines is introducing five additional European destinations for its 2015 summer schedule, in addition to another five which were announced last autumn.
This ‘start up aid’ will be made available from the Regional Air Connectivity Fund which was announced by the UK government in June 2013 and is open to airports with fewer than five million passengers per year. This fund has already been partly distributed to support strategic routes to London from Newquay and Dundee but is now being extended to bids for more routes.
The route is expected to be popular with Belfast’s business passengers and is expected to generate 50,000 departing passengers per year. Belfast has a well-established Business and Financial Services sector, and business customers will be able to reach the city’s business district 10 minutes after leaving the airport due to the location of George Best Belfast City Airport.
We can reveal that key discussions to bring this European route to fruition took place at our Routes Europe forum in Marseille, France in April this year.
