Air Berlin expand @ STN, but Fly Globespan pull-out

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from cheapflights.co.uk

Low-cost airline Air Berlin will begin flying between the UK and Helsinki on February 3.

Flights from Stansted to the Finnish capital will start from £42 each-way, including taxes and charges, go via Düsseldorf and run every day except Saturdays.

It's an early start for outbound travellers with flights departing Stansted at 7.30am and touching down in Helsinki at 2.45pm. Return flights leave Helsinki at 3.55pm.

Air Berlin is one of several no-frills airlines set to boost services to and from the Finnish capital.

but at the same time...

http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=104642006

BUDGET airline FlyGlobespan has scrapped all domestic flights from Edinburgh.

The city-based no-frills carrier said it was cancelling a planned route from the Capital to Bournemouth and axing its service to London Stansted.

The cancellations, which come into effect at the end of February, have left hundreds of passengers who had already bought tickets on the flights now having to find alternative ways to travel.

The firm has been unable to sell enough tickets to the English south coast, while planes flying to Stansted will instead be used to take holidaymakers to Europe.

The shock announcement bucks a recent trend for service expansion by FlyGlobespan, who only this week announced two new destinations from the Capital for next summer - a weekly service to Mahon in Menorca, as well as the first flights to the Croatian resort of Pula.

A spokesman said: "We apologise to any customers inconvenienced as a result of the ending of these flights.

"In order to serve the summer market and go to the resorts we want to fly to, we need to take planes off the domestic services. We still have ambitions for expansion and hope to revisit the domestic market."

The firm has also cancelled services from Stansted to Glasgow Airport.

Rival company Ryanair said it would offer stranded passengers free tickets for a flight on one of its planes.

Bit of a shock. Sounds to me like they can't compete with Easyjet on those routes. Still, Ryanair get a bit of free publicity. :)

Original post

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 1,614

Good to see Air Berlin expanding - shame about GSM but then they are prinicpally a Scottish carrier.

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20 years

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Flyglobespan haven't pulled out completely though, they will still be operating TFS and ATH from STN this summer.

Member for

24 years 2 months

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Isn't the GLA-STN service still going to operate once weekly though ? And don't GSM have lo-co-long haul plans for Stansted ?

Member for

20 years

Posts: 3,124

Isn't the GLA-STN service still going to operate once weekly though ? And don't GSM have lo-co-long haul plans for Stansted ?

GLA-STN is getting dropped from the end of Feb, EDI-STN from the end of March. Yep, STN will be one of the airports to feature in their long haul plans too.

Member for

18 years 5 months

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Is it me or is this a repeating trend that Globespan seem to be dropping routes on a regualr basis? What could be the problem: finance, administration, personnell?

Member for

20 years

Posts: 3,124

Is it me or is this a repeating trend that Globespan seem to be dropping routes on a regualr basis? What could be the problem: finance, administration, personnell?

Common sense? If the routes aren't selling there's no point in operating them and losing money.

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 1,614

Remember although they are dropping routes they are also starting new ones - so it's not all bad - it's a question of finding the most profitable routes to generate as much profit as possible from each aircaft.