@SeanM1997

Following the loss of Ryanair in early 2021 and the travel restrictions imposed during the COVID-19, City of Derry Airport looked to be suffering. It had lost its two busiest routes (Edinburgh and Liverpool), with charter flights to Palma de Mallorca cancelled for the summer due to uncertainties in travel restrictions. This left the airport with just one airline (Loganair) and two routes - Glasgow and London Stansted for 2021. However, the airport has turned its fortunes around and have recently announced a series of new routes and increased frequencies, with Loganair today announcing a new City of Derry to Edinburgh route from May 2022. In March, Loganair announced a third route to Liverpool, with four weekly flights, increasing to seven weekly in late June and were further increased to nine weekly flights in peak summer. Whilst this was less seats than offered under Ryanair, it did involve more flights and were more attractive to those wanting to be flexible with their travel. Additi...

Wizz Air announced a new route from Tirana to Liverpool, with year round flights commencing 10 December 2021. The announcement was one of 4 new routes from Tirana, where Wizz Air plan to base an additional aircraft in the Albanian capital. This will be the only UK - Albania flight outside of London. Wizz Air are to operate the route three times weekly and is the third Wizz Air new route in Liverpool in 2021 - following Burgas in Bulgaria and Rome Fiumicino in Italy. In total, Wizz Air will operate 14 routes from Liverpool in 2021. Flight timings: W6 6641 TIA 1950-2215 LPL (Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays) W6 6642 LPL 2250-0255+1 TIA (Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays) *Frequencies and timings were accurate at the time of publication Photo: https://wizzair.com/en-gb/information-and-services/about-us/press-office/aircraft

Ryanair have added 10 new routes across North West England, with flights launching in Winter 2021. Ryanair have added 4 new routes from Liverpool and 6 new routes from Manchester, commencing from October 2021. Liverpool Ryanair recently announced new routes to Rome Fiumincino and Stockholm Arlanda, and have expanded on this by adding 4 new routes: Milan Bergamo - 2x weekly flights Paris Beauvais - 2x weekly flights Sibiu - 2x weekly flights Tallinn - 2x weekly flights All four routes are unserved. easyJet recently cut its Liverpool to Paris Charles de Gaulle route, thus Ryanair is an indirect replacement to this service. Additionally, this is the first Ryanair route from Sibiu to the UK, with only Wizz Air serving the UK form Sibiu (to London Luton). Manchester currently have Ryanair flights to Milan Bergamo and Paris Beauvais, meaning the Ryanair additions will complement its existing network 40 miles away. With these new routes, Ryanair are forecast to serve 1.9 million annual passen...

17 June 2021 easyJet have loaded 12 new domestic routes for Summer 2021, serving 16 airports across the United Kingdom. As noted in my previous article ( easyJet expands UK domestic - where next? (seanm1997.blogspot.com) ), even before the collapse of Flybe in March 2021, easyJet has been the number 1 domestic carrier by seats in the UK - connecting major airports including London Gatwick, Manchester, Edinburgh and B elfast International, and has recently grown its UK domestic operation. easyJet have long served one key market in the UK domestic market - connecting major cities and conurbations. Belfast (International) has been key to this. Being on a separate island to Great Britain has allowed easyJet to grow its Belfast operation in recent years and with the collapse of Flybe, easyJet became the largest domestic carrier from the Northern Ireland capital. In 2019, the airline launched Manchester - Jersey and in 2020 launched Edinburgh - Birmingham and Glasgow - Birmingham, whilst in ...

8 June 2021 Between 23 July 2021 and 29 August 2021, Loganair will add an additional 1,152 seats on the Liverpool to City of Derry route by increasing the number of weekly flights from 7 to 9 in each direction during the summer school holidays. These flights will be operated on the ATR 42-500 aircraft, with 24 additional rotations during this time. Image 1: Shetland News Loganair launched the route on 24 May 2021, following the withdrawal of Ryanair from the route. In 2020, Liverpool was City of Derry's busiest route with 27,912 passengers, down 52% year on year. This fall in passengers is predominately due to COVID-19 restrictions with the UK population encouraged to stay local for much of 2020. As the percentage of the population who has been vaccinated is increasing nearly every day in the United Kingdom, along with a dramatic fall in COVID-19 cases since the turn of the year, demand for flying, especially domestically, is starting to rebound. With summer fast approaching, these...

8 June 2021 Ryanair announced a new route from Rome Fiumincio to Liverpool with flights commencing 1 August 2021. Blue Air previously served the route until 2019, when they cut the Liverpool base. This left the market unserved until 2021. Wizz Air announced in May 2021 that it will launch a new route to Liverpool from July 2021, meaning Ryanair will be the second airline on the route. In Peak Summer 2021, Ryanair will serve the Liverpool to Rome Fiumicino route four times weekly and Wizz Air will serve the Liverpool to Rome Fiumicino route three times weekly. In Winter 2021, Wizz Air will serve the Liverpool to Rome Fiumicino three times weekly. The Ryanair route is currently not on sale for Winter 2021 but is expected to go on sale at a later date. Flight timings: FR3009 FCO 0640-0825 LPL (Friday) FR3009 FCO 1340-1525 LPL (Wednesday and Sunday) FR3009 FCO 1810-1955 LPL (Monday) FR3010 LPL 0850-1235 FCO (Friday) FR3010 LPL 1550-1935 FCO (Wednesday and Sunday) FR3010 LPL 2020-0005+1 FCO...

Even before the collapse of Flybe in March 2021, easyJet has been the number 1 domestic carrier by seats in the UK - connecting major airports including London Gatwick, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast International, and has recently grown its UK domestic operation. easyJet have long served one key market in the UK domestic market - connecting major cities and conurbations. Belfast (International) has been key to this. Being on a separate island to Great Britain has allowed easyJet to grow its Belfast operation in recent years and with the collapse of Flybe, easyJet became the largest domestic carrier from the Northern Ireland capital. In 2019, the airline launched Manchester - Jersey and in 2020 launched Edinburgh - Birmingham and Glasgow - Birmingham. In 2021 the airline re-introduced previously cut routes including London Gatwick - Aberdeen and Edinburgh - Jersey and has added new routes to Bournemouth (from Belfast and Edinburgh), Inverness (Belfast) and Newquay (Glasgow, London G...