An East Midlands Airport director says the launch of a new flight to Cornwall is a sign of confidence returning to the site following the coronavirus pandemic. Around 30 passengers boarded the first flight out of East Midlands Airport to Newquay on Friday (March 31), with operators confident that the soon-to-be daily service will eventually be fully booked.
The airport is expecting passenger numbers this summer to be up to 95% of what they were before the coronavirus pandemic, a jump from last year when numbers were at around 75%. The new flight route to Newquay Airport is currently operating for four days a week but will become a daily service throughout the summer by late May.
The route is being operated by Eastern Airways, an airline which hasn't flown a scheduled service out of East Midlands Airport since around 2000 when its Aberdeen route closed. Roger Hage is the Commercial Director for Eastern Airways and has several local connections, having been born in Bulwell.
Speaking about the attraction of the new Cornwall route, Mr Hage said: "It's a long and difficult road journey, it can be six or seven hours by car, and rail is nigh-on impossible, so this is a great one hour service down to Cornwall. It means that a UK staycation destination is available for the region.
"Within a couple of hours you're in Cornwall and that's a big difference to sitting in the car all day, particularly if you've got children. We need to see a little bit more in terms of full numbers, but making people aware that this route is here and available will be the catalyst.
"A lot have made the assumption that this is just a one-way leisure service, but there are a lot of people who work in Exeter and Plymouth who are using it as a way of commuting. The East Midlands also provides city break destinations for people living in Cornwall." Flights from East Midlands Airport to Newquay for one adult in August are being advertised on the Eastern Airways website from £150.
The Eastern Airways plane landed in the East Midlands on Friday carrying over 20 passengers who had made the inbound journey from Cornwall. Passengers on this inaugural flight were greeted with doughnuts from Project D, which has bases at locations including Derby and Nottingham.
One of the passengers was Luke Pickup, 30, who is himself an Eastern Airways pilot and who was travelling back to his home in Elton-on-the-Hill, near Newark. He said: "It was a really good flight but I am obviously a little bit biased.
"I've been working in Newquay because we also fly a route from there to Gatwick. Usually I'd be driving home from Cornwall but this one hour journey today has been much more convenient."
Chris Letman, 68, was travelling from seeing family in Cornwall back to her home in Derby. She said: "It was a very good flight, although it's not very nice weather coming back here unfortunately. I didn't actually know this would be the first ever flight when I booked it, but I saw it come up and thought it would be a lot more convenient for me."
As well as the Newquay route, Eastern Airways will be launching a service to Paris in two weeks under a partnership with Air France. Chris Lane, the Commercial Director at East Midlands Airport, says these new routes show confidence returning to regional airports.
He said: "Passenger numbers and flight schedules probably returned a bit quicker to some of the larger airports, as airlines brought back routes to the bases where they had a real critical mass. What we're seeing this year is a real return to those higher passenger numbers at regional airports like East Midlands.
"It's real confidence in the aviation industry and a great offering for our customers that we can bring back these routes, and it's absolutely confidence in our region as well. We always need to be very conscious of the environmental impact that we have as an industry, and we're doing lots to make really positive steps in terms of the sustainability of our operation."
After inbound passengers landed, those travelling to Cornwall made their way to the gate and were greeted with Cornish pasties. They included Neil and Ruth Sheehan, both aged 70, from Sheffield.
Mr Sheehan said: "We're travelling to Newquay for a week's holiday in St Mawes. We've done the journey by train before but this is going to be much easier and it's certainly all been good so far."
Another passenger to Cornwall was Jamie Walton, 41, and his son Logan, 8, from the Nottinghamshire village of Sutton on Trent. Mr Walton said: "There are about 20 of us altogether going down to Cornwall and a lot of them are going in the car, but I think I'd fall asleep if I was driving for that long at the moment. It was interesting when I heard about this to see a lot of people mentioning the environmental impact, but driving down in a load of cars can't be great for that either."
Addressing the sustainability of the new flight route, Roger Hage said: "This is a 72-seat, very low emission turboprop aircraft, so it couldn't be any cleaner or greener in the way it's delivered. You'll probably find the aircraft is actually a much cleaner solution than the road."
East Midlands Airport's Chris Lane added that sustainability was important for the aviation industry to stay "relevant." He said the airport had a commitment to using purely renewable fuels by 2030 and to being fully net-zero by 2038 "if not earlier."
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