After a number of years enabling flights between London and Deer Lake, Astraeus (Flystar) announced this week that they will be ending their charter flights with Humber Valley Resort as of April 18th 2008.
Its understood that Monarch will be taking over, and Humber Valley Resort will be making their formal annoucement shortly. Flights in summer 2008 will be on a Thursday.
The Newfoundland government says it's "frustrated and displeased" with Air Canada's decision to end its seasonal transatlantic service from the provincial capital of St. John's next year.
The province says the announcement means that after the last overseas flight leaves on Sept. 4, transatlantic flights will no longer depart from St. Johns.
Astraeus Airlines launched service from St. Johns International Airport to London's Gatwick Airport in May, but the company pulled out of St. John's earlier this month, citing low customer support.
Tom Hedderson, the provincial minister of tourism, says Air Canada has had an inconsistent approach to transatlantic service, which is hurting the province.
Air Canada ended year-round transatlantic service last September, marking the first time the province was without such service since the Second World War.
Articles: MSN & CBC.ca
Keith Collins believes Astraeus Airlines pulled out of St. John's because they were forced out."They did not abandon this market," said the St. John's International Airport Authority president and CEO. "The market abandoned them."
The London, England-based charter airline announced Thursday that, due to low customer demand, it will cease its service between St. John's and London-Gatwick by the end of the summer.
The cancellation will have no impact on Astraeus' regular, twice-weekly service to Deer Lake. Flights, which have primarily serviced the Humber Valley Resort's clientele for the past two years, are flying as usual.
The news of the airline's discontinuation in St. John's came as a surprise to Collins, who had been prompted by the public to lure a year-round carrier to England. "The market has spoken and we're baffled by it, to be quite honest," he said. "It's a very disappointing development for us and this community. We've lost our year-round partner to London."
The service, which began in May, had reinstated the long standing, year-round air link with Europe, which was terminated when Air Canada cancelled its daily flights between St. John's and London's Heathrow Airport last September. The move was an attempt to satisfy Halifax-bound passengers, who were unhappy about having to pass through customs in Newfoundland. St. John's new partnership with Astraeus was pegged by many residents and politicians to be a triumph for business, tourism and travellers in this province.
However, the initial interest failed to materialize. Low ticket sales this summer and bookings for the fall meant the company was losing money. Passengers were, instead, "overwhelmingly" choosing to fly Air Canada - by a ratio of 10 to one. Air Canada resumed its direct route to London this year with a seasonal service, running from April to Sept. 4."
That means travellers are actually choosing to fly out of Halifax on Air Canada rather than flying direct out of St. John's on Astraeus," Collins said. "That's really baffling because that's exactly why we were asked to find another partner. "Collins figures passengers chose Air Canada because it was familiar, plus the fact they could earn and redeem air-mile points. He also noted that the travel agent industry here has proven to be loyal to Air Canada.
He said on average this summer, between five and 30 passengers were flying on Astraeus's 136-seat aircrafts.And the trends for the fall didn't look any rosier. "I'm confident that if they saw the numbers improving in September and October, they would've stayed," Collins said. "It was really quite surprising to them."The airline had invested heavily in providing the service, in terms of air craft, personnel recruitment, training, marketing and even a new online reservation system."Astraeus really had no choice, since it were losing significantly on much of their flights," Collins said. "They had to make a business decision."While the airport will lose money from landing fees, Collins said the biggest loser will be the community, which will not have a direct route to England during the fall and winter months.
As a result of Astraeus's pullout, Collins doubts St. John's will find another international airline in the forseeable future to fly to London."Given what's happened and given the choices the market has made, it's hard for me to credibly present this route as an opportunity for another international carrier, which is really unfortunate," Collins said. "I'll never say never. If market factors change, if this becomes a little bit of a learning experience for the market, a new entrant down the road might be better received."
Full articles on The Telegraph - or CBC.ca or COOP
Astraeus Airlines will not offer flights from St. John's to England during the fall and winter, the airline told travel agents in a release Thursday.
The London, England-based charter airline had intended to replace the year-round flights from St. John's to London that were cancelled by Air Canada nearly a year ago.
In Thursday's release, the airline said there was not enough demand to support the year-round service.
Air Canada gave a similar reason when it cancelled the service.
Astraeus will cancel its Sunday and Thursday flights at the end of August. The last flight of the year from St. John's will depart on Sept. 18.
Customers with tickets for the cancelled flights will receive refunds.
Full article
We get to Gatwick in perfect time, no queue at checkin, and same at security ... we whizz through, and straight to Chez Gerrard for breakfast, with a perfect seat at the window. Looking out across a very busy airport, with hundreds of different activities happening apparrently in isolation, but actually in perfect co-ordination ... so the conversation turns how clever it all is and the health and saftey and processes were required to make it all work.
Called to Gate 45 at 1pm, right on time (for the flight due to leave at 1.40pm) - perfect! ... but at 1.30pm a speaker annoucement tells us "the crew have finally made it to the aircraft, and have started their safety checks". Around 2.15pm we get to the plane, to be told that the crew were being transported across Gatwick in a coach, and it crashed into another coach! Unfortunately one of the crew was thrown against the windscreen, and badly injuryed, and taken to hostpital.
A reserve stewardess had to be called from home, and hence the delay - and then (understandably) a further 40 minutes waiting for her to arrive.
Flight takes off, and all seems ok ... until 10 minutes from Deer Lake ... when the captian tells us that a problem means that he needs to land at St Johns instead, as the problem means he needs a long runway to take off from, and thus landing at Deer Lake would mean he would be forced to stay until it was fixed.
So we divert to St Johns, and watch various engineers working outside, in increasing wet conditions. Eventually, after a 45 minute delay, we're told the problem is fixed.
But then the captain says its possible we will not be able to take off due to the increasingly poor visiblity due to fog & rain. However they do start the engines and roll to the end of the runaway, and after a brief check of things - we're off again on on to Deer Lake.
Press article CBC News:
An English airline is launching a year-round service between St. John's and the United Kingdom, filling a void created last fall by Air Canada. Astraeus Airlines will fly from St. John's to Gatwick each Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
"We are a niche carrier," said managing director Hugh Parry. "We constantly look for emerging and rapidly developing sectors … and we're seeing exciting opportunities in this province." Astraeus has been flying charters between Gatwick and Deer Lake for three years, primarily through contacts with Humber Valley Resorts. In recent months, it introduced consumer flights as well.
Wednesday's announcement provides the resumption of year-round service between St. John's and London since Air Canada decided to provide only spring and summer flights.
Read full article: click here or visit Fly Astraeus Website
