Departure Board!

All you need to do is download the widget, sign up for a flybe account, set your personal travel preferences and Flybe will deliver the latest offers to your desktop, ensuring you have first pick of lowest prices on flights. You can even select which departure airports you want to receive offers about.
The widget known as Departure Board also gives access to your current flights bookings and your Rewards4all points.

One of the possible scenarios being outlined is the sale of Glasgow airport in Scotland. Flybe along with several other low cost airlines have all complained about the poor level of services and lack of investment in new facilities at the airport. Flybe currently operates 7 domestic routes including flights to Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Southampton, Exeter, Newquay and Belfast. They also offer 2 French routes to Paris and La Rochelle.

However Ferrovial may attempt to sell the airport before the Commission reports deflecting some criticism away form the company and ensuring they keep hold of Edinburgh airport.

If Glasgow airport is sold, airport charges could well fall resulting an expansion of the route network.

The implemenation of the feed will help remove the practice of “screen scraping” which is a process of specialist software extracting the pricing data from the Flybe site. The feed will ensure accurate and up to date information being dispalyed on 3rd party sites.
Acess to the feed will via an API, this enables direct connection to the Flybe data.

The appraoch is in stark contarst to Ryanair, who recently announced that they may well cancel all bookings made through 3rd party sites. Ryanair have not announced any plans for an XML feed.

In order to aid the campaign you can

Vote here!

The new flights from Dundee Airport took off today (May 21), with the first flights going to Belfast and Birmingham.

Loganair is Scotland’s longest serving airline and these two new routes which fly from Dundee Airport, mark a return to the city where Loganair started its first scheduled air services 45 years ago.

The Transport Minister for Scotland, Stewart Stevenson welcomed the passengers of the first inbound flight with Loganair chairman Scott Grier and then watched the departure of the inaugural outbound flight to Belfast at 11.00am.

Mr Stevenson unveiled a plaque to mark the occasion, saying “This is great news for Dundee and for Scotland. These routes will provide opportunities for both business and tourism, giving direct access to two of the UK’s key transport hubs.

“These services will help meet the growing demand of Dundee business travellers, students and tourists as well as bringing many benefits for the Scottish economy.”

This is one of the airline’s flagship aircraft and it forms part of a $3billion fleet investment as well as being one of the most environmentally sensitive passenger aircraft in the world.

Mike Rutter, chief commercial officer for Flybe, said: “We’ve been bowled over by the immediate success of these routes. It’s always been part of our plan to phase out the older aircraft inherited from our acquisition of BA Connect in March last year and replace them with our newer, more environmentally sensitive Q400s. We’re delighted that these routes have proved so popular, enabling us to introduce them so much earlier than originally planned.”

David Andersons response was that Manx2 and Flybe, who have been trying to help people affected by the collapse, are dealing with approx 21,000 passengers. It is still too early to have exact figures.

Apparently about 1000 people had contacted Manx2 within 4 days of the failure and a further 20,000 had been in touch with Flybe. The majority have now re-booked, with most getting refunds on their credit cards rather than just swapping flights. He hoped to have more accurate figures of those affected by the end of the week.

The report argues that the Government must review its policy on expanding the UK’s airports. Those in favour of this position include Maurice Spurway, spokesman for Exeter Friends of the Earth. He is reported to have said “This report vindicates arguments that the economic benefits claimed for airport expansion are not based on solid evidence and do not justify the damage to the climate from aviation emissions.

Jamie Christon the deputy managing director of Exeter Airport disagrees and said;

“We will watch the Government’s reaction to the SDC report with interest. The airport is a key driver of inbound tourism into the South West peninsula and our strong relationship with Flybe continues to prove that. Flybe operates a fleet of the most environmentally efficient aircraft in the UK and our master plan will very soon detail our substantial future commitment to the environment.”

The master plan is thought to outline plans to increase the passenger numbers from 1m a year to up to 3.5m by 2030.

A Department for Transport spokesman said it was “simply wrong to claim that there is a consensus that the evidence base is flawed”.