Midlands-based air passengers get new flights

Good news for air passengers is that bmibaby is expanding at East Midlands airport to fill the gap left by low-cost rival easyJet, which has withdrawn from the region.

News last week that easyJet was to close its entire operation at East Midlands came as a blow to air passengers based near Nottingham, Derby and Leicester who had come to depend on its cheap flights to Europe.

But bmibaby has announced that it will add eight new routes and base three more aircraft at the airport, from where it will fly to a total of 24 destinations by 2010.

Air passengers will get new flights to Alghero in Sardinia, Barcelona, Bastia in Corsica, Cork, Dubrovnik, Malta, Newquay and Venice. None of these destinations was offered by easyJet.

Bmibaby will fly to Palma in Majorca throughout the winter and to Geneva and Prague all year round, replacing easyJet services.

In total, there will be 3,000 extra flights operated from the airport with seats for an extra 350,000 air passengers.

However, air passengers based in the north will lose their daily flight to New York in January. Delta Air Lines is dropping the service, which has operated since 2006, due to lack of demand.

British Airways dropped its daily New York flights from Manchester last year and Bmi has also withdrawn all its transatlantic flights from the northern airport.

Air passengers will still be able to fly to the States from Manchester. Delta has confirmed it will continue to operate its year-round service to Atlanta.

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