XL axe Gatwick – Caribbean flights
26.08.08
XL Airways has announced that it will cease operations on all six of its Caribbean routes from Gatwick Airport for this coming winter due to adverse market conditions. The airline currently operates flights to St Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada and Tobago from Gatwick. The last weekly flight will fly take off on November 3.
XL.com Managing Director Martin Lock said ‘The Caribbean routes’ lack of profitability has been a challenge for XL Airways over recent months. The main factors causing this are the extremely high fuel prices, which result in long haul routes bearing very high costs compared to 6 months ago.'
'There has also been a serious downturn in the UK economy leading to lower demand for Caribbean flights and holidays and again, because of their higher prices, the long haul routes from the UK are seeing even more of a softening of demand than short haul. This weaker demand has lead to XL Airways having to keep our prices competitive as we try and attract more customers.'
'The result of low yields [average fares] with high fuel prices has led to the Caribbean routes to lose unacceptable amounts of money and, without all the islands being able to assist us, reluctantly we have had to take the decision to cancel the services.’
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