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Monday November 16, 2009

Airlines Leave Mallorca High and Dry


Come the Winter, expats in Majorca often warn of island-it-is, a common affliction best cured by hopping on the nearest plane for a complete change of scene. With fewer visitors and the onset of cold, dark nights drawing in, it is easy for some expat residents to feel isolated and bored in resorts that transform into little more than ghost towns. The transport infrastructure on our island is poor in many areas so those without cars, feel completely marooned.

Now, with airlines feeling the pinch more than ever, those expats keen to return to the UK at Christmas time will be disappointed. Both British Airways and Bmi which did a brisk trade offering regular scheduled services to Majorca, have summarily announced that there will be no winter flights from London. To add insult to injury they have also confirmed that they have no plans to reinstate a London route in the future.

The expat community in Majorca has been in uproar as have those second home owners hoping to pop over regularly during the winter season. And what about winter tourism? With visitor figures down this summer due to the staycation phenomenon, there’s little hope of tourist chiefs luring visitors back for Christmas when flights have all but dried up. For us hicks in the mountains living near a working town with full amenities, it isn’t such a blow but if we do want to return to the UK out of season, we are at the mercy of the two remaining winter operators offering scheduled flights, Ryanair and easyJet. The irony is that the two so called no-frills airlines happily find themselves with no competition, and can charge whatever they like willy nilly.

The bigger airlines were only too happy to clean up while the good times rolled but now the chips are down, they’ve turned their backs on loyal resorts like Majorca. Should the good times return, these kings of the skies might find their erstwhile customers have switched loyalty to the more dependable no frills airlines and then, perhaps, they won’t be feeling quite so high and mighty.
source Majorcan Pearls Blog www.telegraph.co.uk/expat



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