LHR Canary flights

[no, no, no]

I was looking to go from London for a break to TFS this winter around Christmas and have seen that no-one offers flights to any of the Canary Islands from Heathrow! Does anyone know why this is. The option is to either get to Gatwick, which isn't the nicest of places to get to from North of London, or go on a scheduled-charter flight with Monarch from Luton - hardly my idea of comfort!!

I can't understand why no-one does a LHR flight though as it would surely do well and attract pax who are fed up with either of the above 2 options. I'm interested to know why there aren't any services though.

I'm also curious to know, if anyone from GB is out there, if many pax travel on their own back like me, or does everyone usualy travel as part of a package?

[rupetime]

You can get to Tenerife from Heathrow but it would be via a major city like Madrid or Barcelona and changing flights there.

Lots of charters operate from all of the other UK airports - for North London I would say Luton or Stansted, im not sure what a schedule charter you refer to is - i assume something like Monarch's Crown Class - this isnt a charter and i think you will find the service could compete with any other schedule airline.

Heathrow doesnt serve places like Tenerife directly as Tenerife is generally a holiday destination served enmass by every charter airline in the UK from all the "charter" favourite airports.

Any good travel agent will find you Heathrow flights chaging in Madrid or Barcelona or charters from other airports.

rt

[OLNEY 1 BRAVO]

Certainly gets my vote .. absolutely not a charter operation.

No, no, no ... go for it!:D

[rockboy]

hello no, no, no
regards lhr flights to the beautiful islas canarias, it probably has to do with slot availability at lhr and the fact that there are more 'higher yield' routes that gb would want to do out of lhr with the amount of slots they have (i.e the double daily malaga) rumoured to be our most profitable route....(60 club pax at times) when we average a 10 - 15 in the club cabin on most of our lgw flights.

Also, from a marketing perspective, many people would not associate lhr with 'leisure routes' and thus the costs of marketing might be higher.

As for Gb to the canaries, this winter sees us doin out of lgw : 9 a week to TFS, bout 3 or 4 each to ACE and LPA and new routes, twice weekly each to FUE and TFN (will have my harness strapped in more tightly than normal on this one, but then, see if it compares to funchal or gibraltar on a 'breezy day'). That's when i put my life in the hands of the girls and boys at the front.

Anyway, am digressing, back to the topic. As far as i am aware there are block allocations from tour operators, can't give u a percentage per flight, but we do also carry many independent travellers who have timeshare, own property, are sick of the 28" pitch or just want to do their own thing. (Have flown monarch scheduled many a times before and as crew myself, their service gets a thumbs up from me, the only thing that lets them down is that they carry 180 pax on the 320 and 220 on the 321 whilst we at gb carry 156 and 189 respectively, and believe me, it makes a hell of a difference (having worked on 220y 321 many moons ago!)

Hope this answers your question and it makes some sense, perhaps a 3rd or 4th runway at lhr in the future might make a uk carrier catch on to this..................... ;)

[newswatcher]

No, No, No - have just done this trip over Easter, flying out of LHR, through BCN on way out, MAD on way back. Even though I booked last August, the "cheap" fares via MAD o/b had all gone! Cost us £150 return incl tax. Stopover less than 90 minutes.

However, I would suggest taking the LGW route, example out 20/12 back 27/12 showing at c£180 inc tax, Iberian A321. Monarch ex-LTN want £300 for same dates!!

Good luck!

[MarkD]

check out Expedia.co.uk

LHR-MAD-TFS BA/Air Europa for about £240 (sample dates 20.12, 29.12)

[no, no, no]

Thanks for all this. I've just spoke to Monarch though who tell me they offer their flights with a 28" seat pitch which is a bit small for my liking - however cheap they are selling it really. For a 4hour plus journey I do prefer a wee bit of comfort..... :cool:

It looks like I will end up going from LGW though as I'm not too much a fan of connecting flights either... (just call me fussy.....)

I wish someone would start up a new LHR service though before the winter as it would solve all my problems so come on the BA's, bmi's and Iberians of the world........;)