Source: The Scotsman
11/11/03

New flights a boost for tourist trade

EasyJet yesterday signalled an interest in launching direct routes between Scotland and Germany as US Airways confirmed its plans to start flights between Glasgow and Philadelphia next May.

The current flurry of Scottish air service expansion announcements will continue today when CSA Czech Airlines unveils details of increased Edinburgh-Prague flights from next summer.

EasyJet said it was considering new Scottish-German routes following the decision last week to open a new operating base at Berlin Schonefeld airport.

Moira Findlay, the marketing manager for the no-frills airline in Scotland, said although neither Edinburgh nor Glasgow were among its first 11 routes from Berlin, at least one of them may be added in the future.

The development came as VisitScotland said the paucity of direct flights to and from Germany was one of the most significant gaps in Scotland’s international air links.

Denise Hill, its head of international marketing, said the country was Scotland’s most important tourist market after England and the United States.

She pointed out that while Lufthansa and Ryanair flew between Frankfurt and Edinburgh and Prestwick respectively, there were currently no direct services to Berlin, Hamburg or Munich.

The airline Germania closed its Prestwick-Berlin route last week, which was blamed by industry observers on lack of marketing, while Germanwings has reduced its Edinburgh-Cologne flights to summer-only. Ms Hill said: "We have seen a strong and consistent increase in interest in Scotland, so we have a pent-up demand from tourists."

She added that 80 per cent of Germans travelled abroad, and they accounted for the largest proportion of passengers on the 18-month-old Rosyth-Zeebrugge ferry link.

Ms Findlay said: "I would hope that we would consider new German air links for the future because there is a strong market between Scotland and Germany, especially in inbound tourism."

However, she said Edinburgh and Glasgow airports had been rejected in the first round of routes from Berlin because they were seen as more expensive than English regional airports such as Newcastle.

BAA, which runs Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, welcomed EasyJet’s interest and said it was keen on agreeing a deal.

Alastair Smith, its spokesman, said BAA had already had long-running discussions with the airline about potential German routes.

Mr Smith said: "If VisitScotland has indicated that Germany is a major tourist market, we would be keen to help develop that."

Both BAA and the Scottish Executive have earmarked a total of more than £100 million over the next few years to help launch new routes, by offering introductory landing-charge discounts.

The latest new service to be supported by BAA’s route development fund was confirmed yesterday by US Airways, which will start daily summer flights between Glasgow and Philadelphia from 8 May.

The launch will come a month before Continental Airlines starts a new year-round Edinburgh-New York service. Continental is also continuing its daily Glasgow-New York service, which started five years ago.

Richard Mortimore, US Airways’ international sales and marketing director, said the new route had been chosen because of significant business and academic links between the two cities. He said these included Philadelphia’s pharmaceutical industry, financial sector and medical research centres.

He expected many leisure passengers to fly on to other destinations, such as Florida, using the airline’s new hub terminal at Philadelphia airport.

Mr Mortimore said Edinburgh had also been considered for the service, along with Milan and Stockholm, and the Scottish capital remained a contender for further route expansion in the future. Glasgow is the airline’s third British destination after Gatwick, from where it operates to three US cities, and Manchester.

Charles Gordon, the leader of Glasgow City Council, said he expected the new route to inject millions of pounds into Glasgow’s economy.

He said: "I’m delighted that we are going to have a direct link between Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, and Glasgow, the Friendly City." Stephen Baxter, the managing director of Glasgow airport, said: "We have a history of being a long-haul gateway, and intend to continue to build on that."

I really hope something comes of easy Jet's 'interest' in flying from Scotland to Berlin. Trouble is, we have been here before, with easy Jet publicly declaring an interest in expanding Euro services out of Scotland, but citing BAA's charges as the obstacle.

Will BAA surprise us all this time? And will those plans for EDI/GLA to Paris, Geneva, Barcelona etc. resurface once again?

Quite right Callum, they've been going on about exapnding their Euro services from Scotland ever since they launched their EDI and GLA-AMS serivces.

The last thing I heard was that they weren't going to expand in Scotland because EDI and GLA were still too expensive, even with the route development fund!

Hopefully EZY and BAA can get over their impasse. If they did I think we'd probably see more than just SXF, but also some of the other routes you mentioned!

fingers crossed, but as Callum said, we've heard this before

I am flying with them to Nottingham tomorrow, hardly the glamour of a new euro destination

big announcement about the Berlin flights by the cabin crew today. EDi was conspicous by its absence from the list of UK airports serving it though

I flew to Berlin-Tegel with KLM in the summer for a visit to northwest Poland (only an hour and a half away on the autobahn). KLM had a a decent range of possible connections, though the price was more than 150 pounds, which Easyjet should be able to undercut quite comfortably, even with EDI's charges.

Interesting to note that EDI-AMS was busier than AMS-TXL both ways.

In terms of flights to Germany, I would have thought there was more chance of one to Munich and the new Lufthansa terminal, or perhaps Hamburg.

Welcome to the forums, Andrew!

KLM is my preferred method of getting from EDI to Berlin at the moment, but as you say there must be plenty of scope for easyJet to provide direct flights at a fraction of the cost. Let's hope it's on the cards, together with other Euro destinations such as Paris, Nice etc.

I think you're right about Munich as well - Lufthansa would be the obvious carrier to provide such a link. Edinburgh and Munich have strong business and tourist links, and this is very much a 'missing link' in terms of air services.

I used Lufthansa to fly back from China this summer. There was a big feature on Munich airport in their in-flight magazine. Seems that Lufthansa have big plans for their new terminal there.

Given the numbers on the EDI-FRA route these days it must only be a matter of time before Lufthansa start a service to Munich.

here's hoping Andrew. i passed through the new terminal a day or two after it opened at the end of June. Around the same time, there was a story about some kind of agreement reached between the chambers of commerce of Edinburgh and Bavaria. Hopefully this will lead to an air link.