At Last – More Direct regional Flights

One of the main grumbles, from anyone booking any kind of holiday, is the lack of flights from regional airports. Well not really that there are no flights but no direct flights. Why would you want to fly from say Manchester to Venice, which is only about 2 hours or so, via Amsterdam!, and when it gets to long haul the situation is even worse.

If its a charter flight then fine, so Thomson will fly to any of its destinations, long or short haul, with direct flights but they are specifically tailored around their own holidays. Emirates are great too, with direct flights to Dubai from Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle. There are also a couple of other airlines too but not many. So the news that Thomas Cook have started operating direct scheduled flights from regional airports has to be good news.

I stumbled across this last week when I had a client who wanted to fly from Manchester to Las Vegas, and direct flights if at all possible. Virgin Atlantic offer this service, but only on one or two days a week, but guess what good old Thomas Cook – direct flights, good prices and operating three to four days a week. Direct flights to Miami twice a week, New York and Orlando as well.

Air Tanker, who are a company well known in the military aircraft field, have come to a ground breaking agreement with Thomas Cook, to lease them an A330 Airbus. The aircraft will fly under the new Thomas Cook Airlines livery from May 2015, with Glasgow and Stansted also inline for direct services to Las Vegas, Cancun and Orlando.

I`m sure this will make life a lot easier for many people, the flights will be perfect  for cruise holidays where you would like to extend your stay for a few days before or after you voyage, and will also open up exciting destinations for land based holidays and independent travellers too.

It might be a case of watch this space for more routes in the future!