News: Lille gets its first UK flights
Flights > News > # 1204 (01/03/2007)
The French city of Lille will gain its first direct air link from the UK with flights from Leeds/Bradford.
Bmi Regional is to start the six days a week service on April 23.
Flights are being timed to offer connections at the Yorkshire airport to and from Edinburgh and Glasgow. Embraer jet aircraft will be used on the route.
Bmi Regional’s managing director, Stewart Adams, said: “Leeds and Lille already share a common and special link with their twin-city status. This important new air link will not only serve to strengthen that bond in terms of both business and tourism, but will also raise their respective profiles and encourage more opportunities.”
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Comment:
Lille might owe much of its recent growth to its location at the junction of Eurostar services from London to Brussels and Paris, but it has never been a particularly easy place to get to by air. Lille's relative proximity to Paris makes air links through Charles de Gaulle, which most major French cities offer, a non starter. There is no easy transfer between UK domestic flights and Eurostar services, as neither Waterloo, nor Ashford International offer direct links with any London airport.
So, why have BMI Regional chosen to start offering flights to Lille from Leeds, rather than from Manchester, where there must be more demand? Most of the BMI group's recent expansion on Manchester flights has been concentrated on its BmiBaby subsidiary, whereas BMI Regional's cancellation of its Leeds to Paris flights, in the face of no-frills competition from Jet2, appears to have freed up an aircraft for alternative routes. An airport like Lille has a number of operational advantages, when compared to a much larger hub like Charles de Gaulle, but we wonder, which other cities BMI Regional might also have looked at. VLM have been able to make a good go of flights to Rotterdam from both Manchester and London City, so would the Dutch port also benefit from a link with Leeds Bradford?
