News: Birmingham gears up for busiest ever summer
Flights > News > # 759 (08/04/2006)
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Birmingham International Airport (BIA) has released its summer 2006 programme, with several new scheduled routes and four new airlines.
SkyEurope will launch flights to Krakow from April 12, offering twice-weekly services to the popular Polish city break destination. Slovenia’s national carrier Adria Airways will begin a weekly service to capital city Ljubljana from May 10 and a day later Hapag-Lloyd Express will have a second stab at linking Cologne with the Midlands following a distinct lack of success at nearby Coventry.
Brand new airline Flywho plans to launch its first ever flight from Birmingham to Orlando on July 8. The long awaited airline will fly non-stop to Orlando Sanford twice a week and St Petersburg-Tampa once per week. Irish carrier Aer Arann will introduce another new destination to BIA’s route network when it starts a thrice-weekly service to the Belgian city of Liege on May 15.
Additionally, Monarch Scheduled will launch two new low-cost scheduled routes from the beginning of the summer season to Lanzarote and Mahon (Menorca), and will also start flights to Almeria, Murcia and Palma. Monarch will also continue to operate its existing services to Faro, Tenerife, Malaga and Alicante.
Aer Lingus, one of Birmingham’s longest serving airlines, has announced that it will add Cork to its timetable from June 20, and Eastern Airways has added an extra 1000 seats a month on its Birmingham-Inverness route, which now runs three times daily.
BIA’s managing director, Richard Heard said:
“Every year Birmingham Airport continues to attract more and more airlines, which in turn increase the range of destinations on offer to our passengers and to the region. This is partly because airlines are becoming increasingly more aware of the excellent facilities available to their passengers from BIA and location in the heart of the UK.”
Meanwhile, a number of Birmingham’s existing carriers are also expanding their programmes for the summer season. British Airways launched its new low fares airline BA Connect at the end of March, offering new daily services to Berlin, which was previously unavailable from Birmingham. The airline is also now flying to Geneva every day and will begin four daily flights to Belfast City from April 12. These new destinations are in addition to BA Connect’s 14 other scheduled destinations already available from Birmingham. Furthermore, Air India has announced that it is doubling its services to both Amritsar (onwards to Delhi) and Toronto from the start of May, following the success of its Birmingham launch in May 2005. The Indian flagship carrier will increase its operation from three weekly departures to six on both routes, totalling twelve departures each week from Birmingham.
The charter market is also developing at Birmingham. TUI are set to launch a new route from Birmingham to Pula in Croatia, and more capacity will be available on flights to Sharm El Sheikh, Palma, Larnaca and Faro with Thomas Cook; Varna with First Choice; and Bourgas with both TUI and MyTravel. Holiday Options and Balkan Holidays will both offer packages to Ljubljana in Slovenia on Adria Airways’ new service.
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