FlyBe to Announce 5 More routes out of Liverpool

BUDGET airline Flybe expects to announce five new routes out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport in the next few months – taking its total to nine.

Last month the carrier unveiled four new services out of JLA – to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast and Jersey – which will take off early in the New Year.

Flybe’s sales and marketing director Mike Rutter told the Daily Post the company was planning more routes to the south west and east of England, Scotland and probably Bordeaux and Bergerac in France.

“We may announce the first of those routes as early as December,” he added.

Mr Rutter also said there had already been a massive response from the public for the first four routes.

He added: “We are pleased to say we have already sold 20,000 seats on those four routes and that is absolutely staggering.”

Flybe yesterday reported record half-year profits to September 30 of £14m, a big rise on £3.1m during the same period a year ago.

The figure reflects an expansion drive which has seen the carrier become the third biggest low-cost operator in Europe.

The news will come as a further boost to JLA which has seen a big expansion in the number of routes this year despite intense competition from Manchester Airport for low-cost carriers.

Existing operators Easyjet and Ryanair have all announced new services this year and new operators have appeared including VLM, which flies to London City, Aer Lingus to Dublin and Wizz Air to Eastern Europe.

A report from the North West Development Agency last month proposed a major expansion of Manchester over the next few years; however JLA believes it can still prosper alongside.

Flybe now operates 33 international routes and 36 domestic routes and says it will carry around 4.5m passengers in the 2004/05 financial year.

Although it is a budget carrier Mr Rutter claims its business model differs from its main budget rivals, particularly Ryanair.

He said: “We are a low-cost airline and we feel quite comfortable saying that but our business model differs from Ryanair because our focus is much more on the domestic market.”

Revealing the half-year results, Flybe managing director Mike French said: “These record profit and traffic figures demonstrate the robustness of Flybe’s domestic focused low-cost business model, and builds upon two consecutive years of profit growth.

“Flybe has been created as a new breed of airline which has taken the best of the low-cost business model and fused it with the service cultures of traditional airlines.”

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=14890113&method=full&siteid=50061&headline=five-more-routes-planned-even-before-flybe-take-off-name_page.html

My god, if all this comes off there is going to be some serious increase in PAX numbers at LPL! Wizz, Aer Lingus, Ryanair (If that comes off), FlyBe…