News: Massive boost in regional flights to Scandinavia
Flights > News > # 1156 (19/01/2007)
January has seen a surge in the number of regional flights links to Scandinavia. Recently announced routes have included daily flights from Leeds Bradford to the Danish capital Copenhagen and from Aberdeen to Kristiansand in Norway, courtesy of BMI Regional; together with twice weekly flights to Stockholm from Bristol, courtesy of SAS Scandinavian Airlines.
Last month also saw the announcement of new cheap flights to Oslo from Edinburgh with the budget airline Fly Norwegian.
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One of the most notable features of these recent developments is that all of these routes are to main airports, and most are operated by traditional full-service airlines, rather than low-cost carriers. Scandinavia has always been perceived as a high cost corner of Europe, although Ryanair has developed a strong presence at secondary airports like Oslo Torp and Stockholm Skavsta. We’re not entirely sure which market SAS are trying to serve with two evening flights into Stockholm from Bristol, but BMI Regional's new routes to Copenhagen from Leeds Bradford, which complements its existing services to the Danish capital from Edinburgh and Glasgow, should certainly be able to provide some useful onward connections with SAS, who are fellow members of the Star Alliance partnership.
We would still like to see more budget airlines offering cheap flights to Scandinavia from regional airports, without having to rely on the route development subsidies which are increasingly being used to start new services from Scotland. Scandinavian low cost airlines like Norwegian and Sterling have a limited presence outside London, whereas Easyjet have never seriously expanded into Scandinavia, apart from a handful of flights to Copenhagen.
Last year, Jet2 made their first foray into Scandinavia, with the launch of flights to Bergen from Newcastle. Whilst there have traditionally been good links between the northeast of the British Isles and various cities in western Scandinavia, these have often been established on the back of the oil industry, rather than as a way of stimulating any substantial new demand. With BmiBaby starting to branch out to a host of interesting new destinations from Birmingham, and Flybe bringing many more European cities within economical reach of other UK regional airports thanks to its new Embraer 195 jets, we would certainly hope to see more routes being developed to cities such as Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo and Gothenburg in the near future.
