Brits looking for winter sun, despite recession

The nights are getting darker, summer is well and truly over, it’s still moderately warm, but no doubt soon the British weather will be turning to the rain and cold that we expect of the winter in these parts. And I don’t even want to talk about the clocks going back, which will make nightfall seem even earlier. So, what with the recession you might expect that people will be tightening their belts, gritting their teeth, and facing the long cold winter months without selfishly splashing out on a winter break. Wrong! Well, wrong that is according to some travel agents.

The word among the travel agencies seems to be that people are still on the look out for their winter holiday abroad. As has been true to form since the recession kicked in, many people are now looking for their holidays outside Euroland, with destinations such as Turkey, Tunisia or Morocco proving popular.

These predictions are despite the fact that significant numbers of Brits chose to holiday in the UK this year, which has been charmingly called "staycation".

So is this a case of the travel agents trying to talk up a storm of people heading out of Blighty over the winter? Are they hoping for good holiday sales this winter after what may have been a poor showing over the summer?

Time will tell. Meanwhile, if over the dark, cold months ahead you yearn for some winter sun, there are plenty of cheap flights available to get you where you want to be.

Privatised JAL after public money

I have only ever flown with JAL once and that was not by choice. But I had to get from Kansai to Hong Kong on an Air France endorsed ticket, and they had booked me with JAL. The JAL flight turned out to be an experience I could well have done without. When the surly stewardess came round with the free newspapers she glared at my non-Japanese face and said, “I haven’t got one for you!”, (despite the fact that I lived in Japan and could read some Japanese, not that she bothered to find out). I think in all my years of frequent flying I had never, and have never since, experienced such downright rudeness. JAL was an airline that I then proceeded to forget all about, until recently, when I heard that Japan’s transport minister, Seiji Maehara, has just said that he will not force the struggling JAL to go bankrupt.

So it turns out that the Japanese government has appointed a team of corporate experts to create a restructuring plan for the airline, because JAL’s own draft reconstruction plan has been described as “insufficient”. This crack team will be making recommendations by late October or early November.

So what has forced JAL to come to this pretty pass? Well, the airline has just notched up its biggest-ever quarterly net loss of 99 billion yen ($1 billion) in the quarter up to June, and it is forecast that there will be a net loss of 63 billion yen ($701 million) for the current fiscal year up to March 2010.

JAL was privatised back in 1987, but the company has had to turn to public funds, with 60 billion yen ($668 million) in loans from the government-owned Development Bank of Japan in June, and apparently further requests for cash. So much for the free market economy.

It will be interesting to see how the airline copes in the months ahead.

Newspapers, anyone?

Are the budget airlines abandoning the regional airports?

So Gordon Brown has uttered the dreadful word "cuts" to the TUC in Liverpool, but he is not the only one thinking of this four letter word. In fact British holidaymakers may find themselves having to make longer journeys to airports, as airlines start to cut the number of regional departures in an attempt to keep costs down.

Budget airline Easyjet recently announced the cancellation of all its routes from East Midlands airport, which is going to be quite a loss to residents of the Nottingham area and thereabouts. Similarly Ryanair has cancelled nine of its 10 routes out of Manchester, which will be quite a blow to people of the north-west on the look out for cheap flights. Ryanair is also cancelling two of its flights out of the little up-and-coming airport of Doncaster, saying that the modest passenger charges of £3 a head are not sustainable.

Add to this the fact that last November Thomson pulled out of Coventry Airport, and Liverpool Airport has experienced a drop in passenger numbers of 20% this year. In fact, during the first six months of 2009, passenger numbers have fallen by a staggering 11% at British regional airports compared with 2008. All this may be gratifying to pressure groups such as Plane Stupid, who have been campaigning for an overall reduction in flying due to green considerations, but it is bad news for those hankering after affordable flights out of their local airport.

Heavy demand for South African domestic flights predicted, come World Cup 2010

England’s victory over Croatia on Wednesday means that England fans will now be eager to get hold of not just match tickets, but also flights and hotels, to follow England to the World Cup finals in South Africa.

England fans hoping to do this will find they face a tough time as there will only be a limited number of seats for the actual matches themselves, and not just that, but the tickets will be expensive too. However on top of expensive match tickets, they will also find that accommodation is a bit scarce, and there may well be problems securing flights between the different destinations where matches will be played.

Kevin Miles, international affairs spokesman for the Football Supporters Federation who will operate Fan Embassies in South Africa, says “Initial estimates show that up to 20,000 fans could travel if, as expected, we secure qualification”.

The matches are going to be played in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay, Nelspruit, Polokwane, Rustenburg, and Tshwane between 11 June and 11 July 2010.

To follow all the matches is going to involve a lot of domestic flights, and the demand for these will be huge. South Africa has a fair number of airlines operating between the major cities, and some of the smaller ones too, with fares ranging from first-class to budget. Flights can be booked online from anywhere in the world, which will be handy for fans making arrangements in advance.

It looks set to be a difficult though potentially rewarding time for football fans, and a profitable period for the airlines of South Africa.

bmibaby launches budget flights from Manchester to Lourdes

The budget airline bmibaby has announced that it will introduce flights to Lourdes from Manchester Airport by the summer 2010 season, a move which could lead to more than 9,000 travellers making use of this new route each summer.

Situated on the French side of the Pyrenees, Lourdes has long been a popular destination for pilgrims after apparitions of the Virgin Mary were seen by a young woman, Bernadette Soubirous, in 1858. At this time Bernadette discovered a spring which is thought by some to have miraculous healing properties. Since then Lourdes has become a major focus for Christian pilgrimage, with some 5 million pilgrims and tourists coming to this small market town every season.

The beautiful mountains of the Pyrenees form a natural border between France and Spain, and the route will no doubt also prove popular with holidaymakers heading to this region for the great outdoor life and stunning views that the Pyrenees have to offer. The area is popular for high altitude training in sports such as running and cycling. It is also popular with hikers, and has a number of long distance footpaths.

The flights are due to start on April 30th 2010 and will continue to operate through to October 1st, flying on weekdays. This means that bmibaby will be offering 19 European routes from Manchester by next summer.

This is a welcome move that will provide a valuable connection between the Pyrenees and the north of England in terms of budget flights.

Ryanair pull out of Manchester

Well, Ryanair are in the news again. No sooner is it reported on this blog that they are expanding at Leeds Bradford with the possibility of 1,000 new jobs for the Leeds area, than they pull out of Manchester with a loss of, yes, you’ve guessed it, 1,000 jobs. Leeds gains, Manchester loses.

It seems as though it’s all blown up about landing charges. Manchester has refused to lower the charges it makes to airlines landing at the airport, causing Ryanair to almost pull out of Manchester completely. It is expected that 600 jobs will go directly because of this withdrawal, and a further 400 jobs will now not be created that would have come into being under a deal that Ryanair offered Manchester if it cut charges.

However Manchester Airport has defended its charges saying: "Notwithstanding all of our investment in Manchester airport, including during the current recession, we don't believe that charges as low as £3 per passenger are unreasonable. Clearly, Ryanair do and that's regrettable."

Ryanair will be closing or switching nine of its ten routes at Manchester, and this will take place from the start of October. This will mean a total of 44 weekly flights cut at Manchester, which will mean a loss of some 600,000 passengers a year.

As well as having more routes from Leeds Bradford, Ryanair will be boosting its winter schedules from Edinburgh and Prestwick, with a Ryanair spokesman saying: "We are looking to have more winter routes from Edinburgh and Prestwick than last year.

"We are looking at finalising the schedules for those two airport bases for us, and hope to have them pretty much agreed by the end of this week."

Last winter the airline had 19 routes going out of Edinburgh, and about another twenty out of Prestwick.

Ryanair to expand at a revamped Leeds Bradford Airport

Budget airline Ryanair has chosen Leeds Bradford International Airport as a new base for its flights, a move which Ryanair claim is going to create 1,000 new jobs for the area. Ryanair already has three routes from Leeds Bradford, to Alicante, Girona and Dublin, but an impressive 14 more are to be added covering Carcassonne, Faro, Ibiza, Knock, Krakow, Limoges, Malaga, Malta, Montpellier, Murcia, Nantes, Palma, Pisa and Venice. It is hoped that the new flights will be launched in March 2010, making Leeds Bradford the 34th base for Ryanair.

This announcement follows in the wake of the airport getting planning permission to redevelop its relatively small and simple terminal building, and also to develop the road access to the airport. This plan, backed by the private equity owners Bridgepoint, is hoped to provide top class amenities and boost the status of the airport as the main gateway to Yorkshire.

The project will include a new two-storey extension with new check-in and security facilities, a new departure lounge, and retail area with shops, bars and cafes. The passenger security screening zone will be extended and the domestic baggage reclaim hall will be revamped.

It has been noted that the increased number of flights will make France more accessible from Yorkshire, and this may well be of interest to those looking to buy second homes in rural France.
Ryanair’s expansion at Leeds Bradford will no doubt be interesting news to rival carrier Jet2 which has its headquarters at the airport, especially as Jet2 is already serving nine of the new routes proposed by Ryanair. Jet2 currently flies 36 routes out of Leeds Bradford.

Ryanair plans to put about £84 million of investment into the airport.