So if Lufthansa wants to fly from Birmingham to Newcastle or an Irish carrier wishes to fly
So if Lufthansa wants to fly from Birmingham to Newcastle, or an Irish carrier wishes to fly between Scotland and England, they will be able to.The funny thing is, they already do. Britain is way ahead of the Continent in bestowing freedom of the skies. So you can now fly within the UK on Germany's national carrier and on Ryanair. This latter airline is extending its no-frills network from Stansted to Kerry, starting on 12 JuneElsewhere, the revolution is beginning quietly. One of the noisier champions of the new rules is likely to be Virgin Express. One of the farther flung outposts of the Branson empire, this low-fare carrier is based in the Belgian capital. Tomorrow it begins Gatwick-Brussels flights, with connections to a range of European destination.Georgia, the country whose capital is Tbilisi, is so far off the beaten flight path that its embassy in London could not tell me whether or not it is in Europe But other sources define the Caucasus as firmly European.
Mediterranean it is not, but that is no impediment to the airline British Mediterranean, beginning services from Heathrow on 12 April. The airline has no doubt that it can fill the front of the plane with premium passengers, leaving seats at the back to be sold for whatever they can fetch. So expect some good discounts on the route.Other airlines, too, are looking east in the search for new markets. British Airways is starting flights to Krakw from both Manchester and Gatwick, and to Riga from Gatwick. You will also need to go to Sussex for the BA flight to St Petersburg; the airline is moving plenty of planes to Gatwick to free slots at Heathrow for the most lucrative high-frequency services.Strangely, many British Airways flights are slowing down for summer.
From tomorrow morning, the scheduled journey time for BA flight 2751 from Zurich to Gatwick is three hours - 20 minutes longer than it was this morning.Some services have dropped off the BA map altogether: no longer can you fly from Heathrow to Turin in Italy. To fill the vacuum, Azurra Air is beginning flights from London City airport to the home of the Fiat.The only thing that is familiar about Jaro International's flights from Gatwick to Baneasa is the aircraft. This little-known Romanian airline has begun flights to Bucharest's second airport. The plane it uses is the familiar old BAC One-Eleven, a number of which were made under licence in Romania during Ceausescu's tyrranical regime.Finally, Schiphol's claim to be the real alternative to Heathrow or Gatwick gets a boost from tomorrow, when Inverness becomes the latest British airport with direct Air UK flights to Amsterdam.SCANDINAVIASkavsta claims to be Stockholm's third airport, but it is so far south west of the Swedish capital that the Official Airlines Guide does not even list it under "Stockholm".
Undeterred, Ryanair is launching flights from Stansted on 12 June. Any inconvenience in using these harder-to-reach airports will be assuaged by a modest grand total of pounds 122 from the centre of London to the centre of Stockholm, thanks to special transfer fares.In July, Manchester gets connected to Iceland. Even if the people of north-west England have no desire to visit the island, they might be glad to know that Icelandair offers excellent fares via Reykjavik to a number of destinations in the US and Canada.THE AMERICASRichard Branson is making a return to the route that made his name. Hacks and holiday-makers who were lucky enough to be on flight VS1 on 22 June 1984 still look back fondly to a flight when the plane was drunk dry.