Fears over cheap flights from Norwich Airport
05.01.06
Six months after being heralded as the flights that would attract a million passengers to Norwich airport, many Flybe planes to Spain are sitting empty on the runway, a local newspaper has revealed.
Flybe made a grand announcement about the six new routes to Malaga, Alicante, Chambery, Geneva, Dublin and Aberdeen in June, claiming the destinations would help meet Flybe's target of carrying a million passengers a year from Norwich. But less than three months after the Spanish routes were launched, passengers are already turning away from the airline, the Eastern Daily Press (EDP) claims, because many flights with a lack of passengers have been cancelled.
One passenger who had been booked to travel to Malaga on January 24 told the EDP that his flight had been cancelled twice due to a lack of demand. He said: 'I was booked on a flight to go to Malaga on Tuesday January 24, but that was cancelled, so I was booked on a flight for Thursday January 26. Then yesterday that was cancelled as well and I was asked to move again. When I asked why, the person on the phone told me it was due to insufficient demand.'
According to the Flybe website between now and the start of March, eight of the 25 flights to Malaga and seven of the 25 flights to Alicante are unavailable labelled as 'full or not enough seats' - including the flights to Malaga on January 24 and 26. The man said when he booked the flight he was not told that it could be cancelled if there were not enough passengers, but would now think hard before flying with Flybe again.
Yesterday head of PR at Flybe, Sara Randall Johnson said that while it was 'extremely disappointing' to cancel any flight, it was a pitfall of running a new service. She said: 'It is extremely disappointing to cancel people's flights but because this is a new service, it is still bedding in and we are still trying to balance supply and demand.'
'On some occasions the number of passengers we are carrying is very, very low and flights do get cancelled for commercial reasons, but it is a rare occurrence and usually only happens when routes are starting up. Also between January and March is a very quiet time for people travelling, especially to the sunshine locations which are not so hot this time of year.'
But despite the low period, Ms Randall Johnson said Flybe were still very pleased with the way the routes were being received. She said: 'We have carried more than 150,000 passengers since March in our first year operating out of Norwich, and forward-bookings for our routes in the summer have been really good.'
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