News: Ryanair's Humberside flights get the chop
Flights > News > # 950 (07/09/2006)
Ryanair is axing its first route from Humberside airport just six months after its launch.
The daily service to Dublin, which began in April, will be scrapped at the end of October because of poor sales. The airport hope to find an airline which uses smaller planes to continue the Dublin route and are also understood to be in talks with Ryanair about launching flights from Humberside to other European destinations.
Add to:
Related Articles:
Related Airlines:
Related Airports:
Comment:
Humberside airport is always going to have difficulty in securing worthwhile routes within the UK and Ireland, because of its limited catchment area and distance from major towns and cities. The loss of the Dublin route will be a huge blow, as the arrival of Ryanair had single-handedly seen Humberside airport reporting an increase in scheduled passengers of over 40%.
Again, Humberside will lose out to the new Doncaster Robin Hood airport, which now sustains three Ryanair routes including Dublin. Travelling from Hull, Robin Hood airport can be reached in about 45 minutes (without any tolls), compared to the half-hour journey across the Humber Bridge from Hull to Humberside airport. The big question for the Humberside bosses is whether any other airline would really want to come in and fill Ryanair’s shoes? An obvious possibility would be Aer Arann, who already operate flights to Dublin from Cardiff (where Ryanair pulled out due to a dispute over handling charges) and Inverness, as well as a huge range of flights within the Republic of Ireland.
However, the situations at Cardiff and Inverness are very different to Humberside - Ryanair pulling out of the Welsh capital was a purely political move to try and negotiate more favourable charges, whereas the rapidly growing city of Inverness serves a huge geographical catchment area, with no other alternative airports nearby. The Humber region is too close to London for any flights to the capital to be commercially viable, yet London flights are so crucial to numerous other regional airports because they provide the "critical mass" of users which can then make other routes – such as Dublin - become more viable. Humberside is also a base for Eastern Airways, who offer flights to Aberdeen. The airline, which specialises in so-called “thin” business oriented routes, might cater for any business demand, but their prices are usually too high for leisure passengers.
On the leisure flights front, Humberside is enjoying record levels of growth, showing that any fears over defections en masse to Robin Hood airport have not materialised. Of course, there is an important business agenda here - managers at Humberside, which is operated by the Manchester airport group, are proud of their airport's reputation for looking after its customers, and do not want to see Peel Airports, who operate Manchester's main rival, Liverpool John Lennon airport, as well as Doncaster, succeed at their expense.
