UK leisure carrier Thomas Cook Airlines is to base an additional Airbus A320 at its Birmingham Airport base in summer 2017 meaning further route and capacity growth from the facility. The expanded fleet of three A321s and two A320s will provide around 2,000 seats per day during the summer 2017 schedule and follows the introduction of another A321 in winter 2016/2017.
The expanded summer 2017 offer will see new weekly flights to Faro, Malta and Naples and expanded services to Arrecife, Bourgas, Fueteventura, Ibiza, Larnaca, Mahon, Paphos and Zante. This will follow the debut of new routes to Hurghada and Las Palmas and frequency growth to Arrecife, Banjul and Tenerife in the winter 2016/2017 schedule, the latter seeing growth from one to four weekly flights for the full season.
“We know how popular these destinations are for the huge number of holidaymakers in the catchment area of Birmingham, and we believe that increasing our presence this coming winter and next summer will build our reputation as a quality leisure airline that focuses on its customers and offers great flying to great destinations,” said James Burrows, aviation director, Thomas Cook Airlines.
Birmingham Airport has witnessed tremendous growth over the past couple of years as a number of new airlines have introduced flights. However, alongside the new arrivals, William Pearson, aviation development director, Birmingham Airport told Routesonline on the sidelines of the Routes Europe air service development forum in Krakow, that maintaining healthy relationships with the airport’s existing operators is just as important.
“Thomas Cook Airlines is an extremely popular airline with our passengers and demand for seats is high. The additional aircraft shows the airline investing more resources into our airport to meet this growing demand and the five new routes, extra seats and additional frequencies during peak seasons will give passengers greater choice and flexibility,” he said.
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