Airlines swoop to plug gap left by bmibaby

Airlines Monarch and Ryanair have swooped to bridge the gap left by the grounding of bmibaby.

Monarch is launching a new base at East Midlands Airport to plug the gap left by the grounding of bmibaby. It will also offer additional flights from Birmingham.

It will launch new flights to key leisure destinations across the Mediterranean, including to Malaga, Alicante, Palma and Faro in Portugal from the Midlands in late summer.

In addition, it will expand its operations from Birmingham by adding more flights to Malaga, Alicante, Faro Rome and Palma plus a new route to Barcelona.

Ryanair is offering packages to passengers who had bookings from Belfast and Birmingham airports cancelled, with rescue fares of £29.99 to corresponding Ryanair served airports like Derry, Dublin and East Midlands.

Ryanair says it"s been working with IAG, BMI"s new owners, to facilitate bmibaby passengers on the following routes.

Derry to/from: Alicante, Birmingham, Faro, Glasgow and London
Dublin to/from: Alicante, Birmingham, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Faro, Glasgow, Ibiza, London, Malaga and Palma.
East Midland to/from: Knock

Passengers can book on these flights until 20 May, for travel from 11 June - 27 October 2012.

Monarch managing director Kevin George said: "In light of recent industry changes, opportunities have opened up in the market. It has become clear that the Midlands will be underserved as a region in the future, and that there is a lack of quality carriers to serve customers travelling from the area.

"As an airline with over 40 years heritage and a stronghold in the Midlands already, the expansion of our existing services from Birmingham and the launch of operations from East Midlands makes perfect sense for Monarch, and accelerates the strategy we announced last year to focus on the development of our scheduled operations into key leisure destinations across the Mediterranean, the Canaries and North Africa."

By Diane Evans and Linsey McNeill

Friday, May 4, 2012