Flying Abroad Find out which airlines fly where!

You are here: Home / News / Airlines cancel routes amid impending recession

Airlines cancel routes amid impending recession

Monday 15 Dec 2008 7:09pm

British holidaymakers are likely to fall foul of increased airfares and a more limited choice of destinations in 2009 as a whole host of airlines abandon their less profitable routes. Dozens of services have already been cut in the last few weeks. This week, Irish budget airline Ryanair threatened to cancel all its scheduled flights to Fuerteventura from January 31st 2009 because of a dispute with local tourism officials over a commercial agreement with the airport. Over the last twelve months, some 250,000 passengers have flown with the Irish airline from British airports to the Spanish resort. Earlier this month, Ryanair terminated its services to the Spanish city of Valencia following a similar dispute. Prior to the dispute, the airline operated flights to Valencia from 10 airports, including Stansted, East Midlands and Liverpool. However Ryanair plans to start new services from Gatwick to Alicante and Gerona, but at the expense of existing flights from Durham to Alicante. Last week, Thomsonfly pulled out of its operations at Baginton airport in Coventry, having run low-cost flights to European cities for four years from the airport. As a result, Baginton airport has lost its last remaining scheduled flights. Earlier this month, Manchester airport lost five key services operated by Bmi to the United States and the Caribbean, while BA abandoned its remaining flights from Manchester to New York (the airline's final long-haul service from a regional airport), claiming that the route was unprofitable. BA has also terminated some flights from London to Calcutta (Kolkata), Dhaka, Zurich and Dublin, but has added a new service from Gatwick to St Kitts in the Caribbean. The airline has also announced plans to reduce its operations between Gatwick and Edinburgh, and Glasgow and Manchester. Flyglobespan, a Scottish no-frills airline, has recently abandoned its plans to commence flights between Aberdeen and Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt on December 17th. A spokesman from the airline commented: 'We are sorry that Aberdeen travellers couldn't support this route but, in today's financial climate, we can't sustain a loss-making service. ' Flyglobespan has also terminated its flights from Aberdeen airport to Barcelona and Lanzarote. Delta Airlines, a US airline which began competing with BA on the Heathrow-to-Seattle route in June, is scrapping its flights on the route in January. Northwest Airlines plans to cut flights between Gatwick and Detroit (ending in January), Tap Airlines will terminate its route from London to Oporto, LTE will suspend its flights from Norwich to Spanish resorts (until next March), while Jet Airways will cut services from London Heathrow to Amritsar. EasyJet has abandoned flights on its 24 worst-performing routes and reduced services to other destinations – although it has also added 24 new routes – after reporting a 45 per cent fall in profits this week. A spokesman for TUI Travel (the company which owns two of Britain's biggest tour operators), Dermot Blastland, said that next year will see even tougher times for many airlines: 'We assume there will be less overseas travel with the weaker pound, high fuel costs and poor economy. There is a limit to how much you can stimulate demand even with giveaway flights. ' TUI has already cut 28 per cent of its winter holidays and 27 per cent of summer 2009's trips in an attempt to preserve profit margins. The managing director of Monarch, Tim Jeans, also said that fuel prices would rise over the next year and that these costs would be passed onto customers in the form of higher fares as advance-purchase fuel deals for airlines run out. However, the turmoil in the travel industry is not just limited to air travel: the cross-Channel ferry company SpeedFerries has just gone into

Browse tags: #LGW #LHR #LTN #STN #BHX #MAN #EDI #CWL #GLA #BFS #U2 #FR #BA #BY #DL

Latest Related News