Air Wales at Norwich

By: LBARULES - 18th August 2004 at 17:55

New Norwich to Dublin Air Service Announced! First Low Fare Route for Airport (18/8/04)
Welsh Airline Air Wales today announces the launch of a new air service direct to Dublin and Cardiff from Norwich International Airport at the beginning of November.
The service will initially operate on three days of the week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Air Wales has however expressed its desire to increase this to a possible six days a week, if the customer demand exists.

Passengers who wish to travel to Cardiff will also be able to book on the service travelling via Dublin on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with a new direct Cardiff flight operating on Saturdays

The 1 hour 20 minute flight to Dublin and the 1-hour flight to Cardiff will be competitively priced from £39.99 each way (inclusive of taxes) and as such are designed to appeal to both the leisure and business market. Flights for the new routes will go on sale from today on the Air Wales website (www.airwales.com) and will be operated by Air Wales’ growing fleet of luxury 50-seater ATR-42 Aircraft.

Trevor Eady, commercial director, Norwich International comments, “This is one of the most exciting developments to happen at Norwich International for some time. The Dublin route has been constantly demanded by our customers and we have worked with many companies to try to secure it. Air Wales have listened to our presentations and see an opportunity to grow their network. They have ideal size aircraft for the route and have confidence that they will be able to increase frequencies within a short time. We are fully aware that something like 100,000 travellers a year from our catchment area fly from Stansted to Dublin. The introduction of the route at the fare levels quoted will provide the region with its first low cost operation from Norwich. In addition to Dublin the ability to book through to Cardiff will be a useful additional route for many business and leisure passengers. Current drive times being in the region of 4 -5 hours compared with the 2 and half hours using the Dublin connection. We look forward to the start of the service and expect to see full aircraft from a very early stage. After all users will find themselves in Dublin in less time than many could access Stansted!”

Air Wales chairman, Roy Thomas, said: “As an airline we pride ourselves on offering competitively priced high demand services from domestic Airports. We’ve been in discussions with Norwich Airport for some time and we’re confident that this is a much-needed service for Norwich and we’re hopeful that it will receive strong support from travellers in East Anglia. While initially we will only be operating the service at 3 days a week, we are hopeful in time, that we will be able to increase this to a more robust 6 days a week service which will open up countless opportunities for business and tourism in the area. Air Wales is a rapidly expanding airline and we are committed to increasing the portfolio of regional destinations we serve and we’re delighted to be working in partnership with Norwich Airport.”

These new services are part of a continued expansion for Air Wales which has launched several new routes over the last year and now operates services to and from Cardiff, Dublin, Newcastle, Amsterdam, Plymouth, and Cork.

Flights can be booked by calling Air Wales’ call centre on 0870 777 3131 or via the website – www.airwales.com.

New Service Timings from Norwich

Days Dep Arr Dep Arr

Tues & Wed Norwich to Dublin 1410 1530 Dublin to Norwich 1210 1340

Tues & Wed Dublin to Cardiff 1600 1700 Cardiff to Dublin 1040 1140

Saturdays Cardiff to Norwich 1040 1140 Norwich to Cardiff 1600 1640

Saturdays Norwich to Dublin 1210 1340 Dublin to Norwich 1410 1530

Great news for Norwich, nice to see more and more regional airports getting more and routes.

I am still very surprised that Humberside only has a KLM AMS flight and Eastern Aberdeen flights. Surely some sort of airline has got to pick up a London/Dublin/Belfast/The Spanish Costas, routes soon.