Many regional airports in Europe depend on the life line services to bigger international airports.In the UK BA have cut many Services to regional airports such as Guernsey (my local airport)Jersey,Inverness and Plymouth Newquay.As a small island Guernsey depends upon airlinks to the UK and with BA only interested in long haul and European flights (this is what it seems like to me)there is probably no hope for us really getting any new routes to the capital or other European services.2 years a go we lost our heathrow route,since then there has been a steady decrease in the number of passengers arriving here,this has affected the tourism industry and has affected all the banks over here.With the espected loss of our Amsterdam service we can’t afford to loose more routes such as Gatwick,so what can be done about it?
regards Saab 2000
P.S-thanks to BA moving many long haul services to Heathrow from Gatwick we now have to make a rather long road journey to connect to many international routes.
By: Wingflaps - 25th July 2001 at 20:12
RE: The loss of regional routes
V1, British Airways were losing over £300 million a year on their European route network. It also costs BA around an extra £200 million a year from splitting operations between LHR and LGW. They only use LGW because LHR is too crowded and they need an over spill airport for their operations. Would you operate loss making routes from LGW, especially when the airline industry is suffering its worst financial problems for around 20 years?
Regards,
Wingflaps.
By: Saab 2000 - 19th July 2001 at 08:47
RE: The loss of regional routes
JY (British European)are the best regional airline in the UK in my opinion,they have upgraded a lot of services from GCI and JER from dash 8’s to BAe 146’s.They have also added more JER-LCY services from 3 to 5 services a day.There is talk of a CDG service also being added.With JY’s agreement with DL an AF it is also much easier for passengers on connecting flights.
regards Saab 2000
By: Newcastle757 - 18th July 2001 at 22:09
RE: The loss of regional routes
Well NCL had there BA CPH route cut, simply because the DH8’s in BRS kept breaking down and they needed the a/c there, even though pax fiures were pretty good. Hopefully, someone can come in and re-start this route.
By: carl727 - 17th July 2001 at 19:10
RE: The loss of regional routes
I think it fair to say some East-Coast Airports have suffered since Air UK (now KLM uk) chopped all there routes in that area. Tees Side at least still has there BD link to LHR, they cut ours (Liverpool) years ago. This was mainly because they wanted the LHR slots for their then new Paris service & I think BA out of Manchester didn’t help . The chances of a LPL-LHR service now is next to nil, we would have to go to Manchester, drive or train & coach. At least Easyjet has put faith in my local airport where some long established carriers haven’t.
By: keltic - 17th July 2001 at 17:40
RE: The loss of regional routes
Eurostar is a fantastic way to get to the continent. Problem…
too expensive.
By: Saab 2000 - 17th July 2001 at 16:43
RE: The loss of regional routes
Rail is the best answer for people who live in mainland Europe,but us in the channel islands are right out in the english channel.Ferries take around 4 hours to the UK and to france around 2 hours.To get to the capital we have to go by plane,so it is vital that we retain our services to London and other UK cities.Unfortunately slots are very hard and expensive to obtain,in Jersey BD said they would do a 3 times daily flight to Heathrow if the Jersey States could pay for slots at Heathrow,this has not happened though.At the moment there is concern about the loss of our Gatwick routes.If GCI and JER lost our LGW route then it would be disasterous for our economy and our people.
regards saab 2000
By: keltic - 17th July 2001 at 10:12
RE: The loss of regional routes
Rail services should improve because they should serve as complement of air services. It´s a bit senseless for enviromental reasons, air congestion short and even medium haul air services. High speed trains are the solution like in France. In Spain the route Madrid-Seville dropped dramtically in terms of passengers when the TGV-AVE was inagurated. Right now we have started the contruction of new high speed rails to improve internal conections and make Madrid-Barajas airport something less conegested and in a way more human to fly to. Europe is too small to have flights everywhere. Distances less than 600 km should be transfered to high speed trains. The studies have proved that trains win to planes in that distances.
By: spcooper - 16th July 2001 at 16:15
RE: The loss of regional routes
I felt dissapointed when 9C left Teesside (my local airport) in November last year…when i switched the text on to find a new operator on our Aberdeen route….EZE and we lost our Norwich service on a sunday. And for some reason our Aberdeen service has never run on a saturday.
Regards Scott
P.S. 9C=Gill Airways, NCL, UK
EZE=Eastern Airways, HUY, UK
By: carl727 - 16th July 2001 at 00:31
RE: The loss of regional routes
You would think with the state of the rail system in the uk we would have much better air connections to the capital, very often it is easier & cheaper to fly to places like Amsterdam than to get a plane to London.
By: keltic - 15th July 2001 at 17:44
RE: The loss of regional routes
Let´s hope big hubs get so congested than airlines think in regional airports again.
By: V1 - 15th July 2001 at 13:38
RE: The loss of regional routes
I think it has been obvious for quite some time that BA is only interested in LHR. LGW has suffered due to BA moving flights to LHR – Given the congestion problems at LHR, BA seem a bit short sighted neglecting Gatwick like this. They have been doing a lot of cost cutting measures since Rod Eddington took over the helm, so quite a few routes which don’t make as much money as others have been dropped.
As for the regional airports, BA seem quite happy to let franchise partners such as Maersk UK expand the route network. It is a shame to see the channel islands getting neglected, because there is demand for flights from both Jersey and Guernsey.
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July 15, 2001 at 1:27 pm