with John Fairclough

This is my first Airport Review  since the momentous Brexit vote in June. Of course, the airports and airlines had already fixed their Winter 2016-17 flight schedules long before this, and so far, they have remained unscathed. In fact, several carriers had already announced their Summer 2017 arrangements before June 23, with some quite ambitious growth planned in a few cases. I’m sure they will all be carefully monitoring sales in the light of the Pound’s slump against the Euro before they come to a final conclusion in the new year. 

Availability of flights for the Winter (Nov to Mar) period seems to be on a par with last year, including the lack of any Ryanair flight from PERPIGNAN to Stansted. The powers that be there made strong representations to Ryanair, citing that previous winter  ‘crack o dawn’ departures from the Essex airport are hardly conducive to attracting full flights, but, sadly, to no avail. As far as the UK/Ireland is concerned, PO’s local airport will yet again be a no fly zone this winter.

 

So, again, CARCASSONNE offers us the nearest connections this winter.

STANSTED….3x pw 

MANCHESTER….2x pw  

DUBLIN…..2x pw    All Ryanair 

Or BEZIERS is an option for London bound travellers

 LUTON….2x pw    Ryanair 

MONTPELLIER is another possibility

 GATWICK……4x pw  EasyJet

 November sees the much-heralded startup of Ryanair services from TOULOUSE

 STANSTED……..  7x pw  Ryanair

 GATWICK……16x pw  EasyJet

 HEATHROW  ….21x pw  British Airways

 BIRMINGHAM……7x pw   FlyBe 

 Sadly, GIRONA is another airport with no UK/Ire connections this winter, so, not for the first time, those wanting to begin their journey from Spain, and have the best choice of flights/routes will need to get down to BARCELONA.

 HEATHROW………48x pw    BA

 GATWICK…….  7x pw   BA

28x pw    EasyJet

2x pw    Monarch

5x pw   Norwegian

14x pw    Vueling

 STANSTED…….26x pw    Ryanair

 LUTON…….      14x pw   Vueling

12x pw    EasyJet

 BIRMINGHAM…….2x pw   Vueling

7x pw   Ryanair

 BRISTOL……      7x pw    EasyJet

 MANCHESTER….  2x pw     Jet2

5x pw     Vueling

 7x pw    Ryanair

 LIVERPOOL…..   4x pw   Ryanair

  6x pw EasyJet

 EAST MIDS……    3x pw  Ryanair

 LEEDS BRAD……2x pw  Jet 2

2x pw  Vueling

 NEWCASTLE….    7x pw  Vueling

 3x pw   EasyJet

 GLASGOW INT …. 2x pw Jet2

 GLASGOW PIK…….3x pw Ryanair

 EDINBURGH……..4x pw   Vueling

5x pw   Ryanair

 DUBLIN……        7x pw   Aer Lingus

7x pw   Ryanair

3x pw    Vueling

 All in all, then, bearing in mind the tremendous uncertainties following Brexit, not too bad an outcome for the winter flight possibilities. Quoted frequencies are for the main winter period. Please check with the individual airline re frequencies over the festive period.

An optimistic last word. There are some real growth offerings in the pipeline for next summer, particularly from Girona and Dimitri and staff at Perpignan are working hard to secure new UK routes to their smart new facility ,following the successful Aer Lingus growth this year. Time will tell.