Liverpool Airport Blog

Ryanair unveils Oslo-Rygge route

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:39:10 BST

Budget carrier, Ryanair, has unveiled a new route from Liverpool John Lennon to Moss Airport in Rygge, Norway. The flight, which will operate twice a week from the 5 November, is designed to work in tandem with an existing route from Liverpool to Sandefjord Airport, better known as Oslo Torp.

Despite flagging profits in the wake of the ash crisis, and extensive cutbacks to its winter flights, Ryanair continues to add routes at select airports, including Leeds-Bradford, Edinburgh, and now, Liverpool. The airline offers 45 destinations from John Lennon Airport, including routes to Bremen, Germany, and Carcassonne in France.

Liverpool’s PR chief, Robin Tudor, claims that Liverpool is growing in popularity with Nordic football fans – ‘Norway is a popular destination with English holidaymakers, especially for winter breaks, but just as important are the numbers of Norwegians travelling over to see their favourite Premier League team.’

Moss Airport is located 5km from the village of Rygge, which is in turn located 67km from the Norwegian capital, Oslo. The airport’s alternative name, Oslo-Rygge, is therefore, somewhat misleading. Rygge is located on the banks of the Oslofjord, which offers both boating and sightseeing opportunities.

Tickets for the Liverpool-Rygge route begin at £23.99 for a one-way trip, excluding Ryanair’s array of taxes and baggage fees. The trip departs Liverpool on Fridays and Sundays, but travellers may have trouble booking a return flight until the 1 September, when the route officially begins. As matters stand at the moment it seems that only one way tickets from Liverpool can be bought.

Ryanair’s website offers more information about flights to Moss Airport, if you can stand the kitschy colour scheme.

Women try to smuggle dead body on to Easyjet flight

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:42:51 BST

As daring tales of smuggling go, the recent case of two women trying to smuggle a dead body onto a plane must rank as one of the more bizarre instances.

Gitta Jarant and Anke Anuisc, both Germans living in Greater Manchester, have been released on bail until June 1st following the discovery on Saturday that Mrs Jarant’s husband, whom they were trying to check in to travel on an Easyjet flight to Berlin from Liverpool John Lennon airport, had in fact been dead for some 24 hours.

The 91-year-old was in a wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket and wearing sunglasses. When initially challenged, the women insisted that he was merely asleep and indeed they had convinced the taxi driver who had transported the party from Manchester to Liverpool that this was the case. Two of Mr Jarant’s grandchildren who were with the women were asked to corroborate the claim about their grandfather. But airport staff were less than convinced and alerted security; the two women were later arrested for failing to notify a death.

The man, Kurt Willi Jarant, is not thought to have died under suspicious circumstances despite the bizarre events that followed his death; he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and had recently been in hospital with pneumonia.

Even after he was pronounced dead, one of the women asked staff whether they could still all board the plane, doubtless a cheaper way of repatriating a body than paying the customary charges which can run into thousands of pounds.

KLM bolsters Liverpool-Amsterdam route

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:11:27 GMT

Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) has expanded its summer roster to include an extra daily flight from John Lennon Airport to Schiphol, Amsterdam. The carrier, which is a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, hopes to improve connections between Liverpool and other cities.

Founded in 1919, KLM is the flag-carrying airline of the Netherlands, noted for its blue and white aeroplanes. The firm entered into a partnership with Air France in 2004, and now provides flights to over 200 destinations worldwide. KLM’s latest expansion at Liverpool boosts the capacity of the Amsterdam route by a third, up to four flights a day.

Liverpool has been host to three KLM routes since March 2009, all of which fly from Merseyside to the Dutch capital. Airport bosses are eager to attract businesses with global renown to the northwest, and believe that drawing more and larger airlines to Liverpool will help the region float its economy.

According to airline manager Henri Hourcade, the new flight is a testament to KLM’s commitment to the northwest: “Our new summer schedule is great news for Liverpool and for KLM, and is a tangible symbol of the strength of our operations out of Merseyside.” The extra flight will join the carrier’s roster in May.

Rival airline, Ryanair, has also announced a new route out of Liverpool Airport. From May 21, the carrier will begin offering flights to Szczecin, Poland. The trip, the second Ryanair offers to Szczecin from an airport outside London, costs £19.99 for a one-way flight.

EasyJet launches Isle of Man route

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:31:45 GMT

From the 21st May 2010, EasyJet will begin offering flights from John Lennon Airport to the Isle of Man, departing every day except Tuesday.

The airline has already noted strong demand for the route in the northeast, where rival firm, Flybe, has held a monopoly on all Isle of Man connections for almost two years, ever since the collapse of the island’s local airline, EuroManx, in May 2008.

EasyJet expects 70,000 people to use its Isle of Man service within the first year of operation, noting its potential for growth as the island becomes more popular with British tourists.

The airline has already reserved a new Airbus A319 aeroplane for the route, which is expected to cost around £23, each way. Not everybody is happy to see EasyJet on the Isle of Man, however.

Flybe chief, Mike Rutter, has already warned travellers away from the ‘new airline in town,’ fearing many broken hearts when EasyJet abandons the route in favour of somewhere exotic and shiny:

“Let’s not kid ourselves.” Mr. Rutter said, “EasyJet’s Isle of Man service has nothing to do with wanting to serve the island, but everything to do with their inability to find a use for their aircraft in Liverpool.”

EasyJet currently operates 27 routes out of Liverpool, including its new route to the Isle of Man.

In similar news, the long-running feud between Ryanair and EasyJet is expected to reach a crescendo in the coming weeks, when the owners of the two airlines, Michael O’Leary and Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, take part in a specially chosen challenge: namely, a race around Trafalgar Square or a wrestling match.

Frosty New Year for Liverpool

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:03:46 GMT

Economists fear that the recent spate of bad weather could have resounding effects for the city of Liverpool, after both fog and heavy snows brought John Lennon Airport to a standstill. On Tuesday morning alone, Ryanair cancelled 12 flights out of the northwest.

Liverpool’s problems began in the days leading up to Christmas, when a snowstorm affected two scheduled flights, and left hundreds of passengers stranded in the terminals. One traveller noted kids crying – “the mood was one of sheer exasperation.”

On the 29th December, a thick fog bank descended on the airport, reducing visibility to just a few hundred metres. Ten flights were cancelled. A further seven were redirected to East Midlands and Robin Hood, where the skies were clear and the runways fog-free.

Liverpool was not out of the woods yet, though. The 5th January brought more snow than the city could handle, and everything from ferry services to local factories, high street stores and bridges were suspended or closed.

Forty percent of Merseyside’s workforce stayed at home, bringing the city to a frosty halt. Experts predict that as much as £50m could have been sucked out of the economy by Tuesday’s closures.

The runway at Liverpool was shut down twice, while specialist teams got rid of the ice and snow. The only major airports that managed to escape the weather unscathed were East Midlands and Humberside, which are operating as normal.

Even the transfer of Liverpool F.C. player, Andrea Dossena, was foxed by the snowfall, as neither Manchester nor John Lennon airports could provide him with a flight out of the country.

Ryanair expand fleet at Liverpool Airport

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:05:11 GMT

Ryanair have this week announced it’ll be expanding its fleet of aircraft at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport.

From March 2010, with two additional aircraft taking its tally to eight, it will be offering passengers a choice of three new links: Rimini on the east coast of Italy, Trapani on the west coast of Sicily, and Lodz in Poland. In addition, frequency of flights will be increased for four existing routes: Faro, Krakow, Proznan and Wroclaw.

The new Boeing 737-800 planes will see Ryanair serving a total of 44 destinations from JLA, with annual passenger numbers predicted to reach 2.5 million, overtaking Easyjet as the airport’s highest serving carrier. With the addition of Rimini and Trapani, holiday makers have plentiful options to see the vineyards and piazzas of Italy. According to Neil Pakey, Deputy CEO of JLA owners Peel Airports Group, JLA will now link to “more Italian destinations than almost all other UK regional airports.”

In the same month that Easyjet launched a new airbus serving two new routes, this is good news for the city, with Ryanair’s expansion alone expected to sustain 2,500 jobs in the area. Only three months after the North West lost several flights, with the airline pulling routes from Manchester Airport due to disagreements over landing charges, this will be a welcome development for the region.

A spokesman for Ryanair, Stephen McNamara, said “Ryanair routes at these airports deliver millions of passengers, and sustain thousands of jobs at each airport and in the surrounding regions every year."

During a volatile time for the aviation industry, which has seen many airlines making huge loses, the growth is part of a £210 million investment by the low-cost airline, which includes similar increases at UK airports in Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow. You’ll find a list of all new UK flights on the Ryanair website.