News in brief
Turkish airline Pegasus UK will launch flights from London Stansted to Ankara on March 29 and to Antalya on June 8. Ankara flights will leave Stansted on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and return from Ankara on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Antalya flights will depart on Mondays and Thursdays both ways.
Rentalcars.com has become Ryanair’s new rental car partner in an exclusive deal. Rentalcars.com has integrated a 24/7 customer service centre into Ryanair’s car rental product, giving its travellers access to a live chat service in multiple languages.
Flybe has announced the launch of summer flights between London Southend Airport and Guernsey following the withdrawal from the route by its franchise partner, Blue Islands. The twice weekly flights on Wednesdays and Saturdays will start on May 2. Seats are available for booking now and are effective for travel through to September 26.
Gold Medal has seen room bookings leap by over 20% to the states this month, with Florida being the stand out destination up 54% year on year. It says the growth should be attributed to the certainty provided with guaranteed pricing flying Virgin Atlantic allowing agents to book packages to Orlando, including Disney and Universal properties, through to the end of 2021.
Latest search figures released by holiday comparison website icelolly.com show a sharp rise in searches for Krakow, mainly on the back of a Facebook campaign. Searches for the Polish city increased year on year by over 600% in the past month. Searches for US holidays also jumped, by 226%, with searches for both Florida and New York up by almost 400% year on year. Icelolly said Facebook campaigns also played a part in the US rise, mostly for NYC, but also reported high levels of organic growth.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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