EUjet routes
 

Official announcment tomorrow, but expect

From Manston

Amsterdam, daily except saturdays from 1st of septmeber
Copenhagen monday to friday from 1st of september
dublin daily except sunday
Edinburgh daily from 4th oct 2004
Faro sat and sund from 4th sept
Geneva daily from 13th december
Girona(Barcelona)daily except saturday from 1st sept
Glasgow monday to friday from 4th oct
Jersey sat and sund from 4th sept
Madrid daily except saturday from 4th oct
Malaga operates sat and sun from 19th oct
Manchester daily except sat from 4th oct
Milan mond to friday from 4th oct
Murcia sat from 4th september sat and sund from 10th oct
Nice sund, mon wed, fri from 1st september
Palma sat 9th october
Prague sun, tue, thurs, sat from 2nd sept
Salzburg sat from 18th dec
Toulouse sat from 18th dec
Turin sat and sun 18th dec
Zurich sat 18th dec


--------------------------

from shannon

Dublin---daily except sat from 16th sept
Geneva--sun from 19th dec
Malaga--sat from 18th sept
Murcia--sat from 18th sept

If that's true then it seems very ambitious to me. There is low cost competition on all their Manston routes from one of the bigger airports, namely STN and LGW, no doubt Ryanair and easyJet will be flooding the market with cheap tickets and their already better frequencies. We'll see anyway...

I suppose though that punters in the Kent regions won't have to deal with the M25 or M11 to get to STN and M1 for LTN. We'll soon see but no doubt MOL will be offering his normal 1p flights soon. Mind you, how long can he afford such offers. His loads are well down. Even the -300's are going out half empty......

Planestation buys EUjet stake, shares take off
 

LONDON, May 19 (Reuters) - UK airport operator Planestation Group PLC has bought a 30 percent stake in Irish airline EUjet, the anchor airline for its international airport in southern England, Planestation said on Wednesday.

The acquisition led Planestation shares to rise six percent to 5.00 pence in morning trade, having earlier hit a 12-day high at 5.13 pence. The company has a current stock market value of around 100 million pounds ($177 million).

Planestation is buying the stake for two million pounds.

Low-cost airline EUjet will start European flights from Planestation's Manston airport in the southern English region of Kent in September, following in the footsteps of low-cost operators EasyJet (LSE: EZJ.L - news) and Ryanair .

"The important part is that we are working together. Because we own the airport, we wanted a flagship airline that uses it as a base," Planestation's Corporate Director Christopher Foster told Reuters. "This will help put Manston on the map."

The acquisition makes Planestation the second largest stakeholder in EUjet, after the airline's Chief Executive P J McGoldrick, formerly head of Ryanair (Dublin: RYA.I - news) .

EU Jet
 

Irish airline EUjet today announced details of a new low fares scheduled service which will commence in September from its base at Shannon Airport and from its UK hub at Kent International Airport.

The airline will initially operate three return flights per day between Dublin and Shannon and weekend scheduled services from Shannon to Faro, Malaga, Murcia and to Geneva during the ski season.
EUjet will also operate daily services from Shannon to Kent via Dublin. Later this week the company plans to announce additional routes from its Kent hub.


The announcement was made today by EUjet chief executive PJ McGoldrick at a reception in Shannon Airport attended by Transport Minister Seamus Brennan and business and community leaders.

"This is a very exciting development for EUjet. The launch of our new service from Shannon will give consumers in the region access to a range of business and leisure destinations at low and very competitively priced fares. It will also create great access to the Mid/South West region," said McGoldrick.

"The existing schedule on the Dublin-Shannon route has meant that it has been impossible for people to fly to Dublin, or from Dublin to Shannon, spend a productive day there, and return again by air the same day. The launch of the new service should be good for business and good for the local economy in this region," he added.

EUjet, which is based at Shannon, was established in May 2003 and over the last year has gradually built up its operations. The airline currently employs over 130 people and it expects this to increase to 240 by the end of the current year, 50pc of whom will be Shannon based.

May 19, 2004
UK airport operator Planestation has bought a 30 percent stake in Irish airline EUjet, the anchor airline for its international airport in southern England, Planestation said on Wednesday.

Planestation is buying the stake for GBP£2 million (USD$3.6 million).

Low-cost airline EUjet will start European flights from Planestation's Manston Airport in the southern English region of Kent in September, following in the footsteps of low-cost operators easyJet and Ryanair.

"The important part is that we are working together. Because we own the airport, we wanted a flagship airline that uses it as a base," Planestation's Corporate Director Christopher Foster said. "This will help put Manston on the map."

The acquisition makes Planestation the second largest stakeholder in EUjet, after the airline's Chief Executive P J McGoldrick, formerly head of Ryanair.

(Reuters)

The press conferance has taken place at county hall this morning, as previously posted EUJET will operate 27 routes out of Manston, to include Man, Gla, Edi, Snn, Dub, Prague, Ams. also announced at press conferance, that Kent county council have taken shares in the operation.

First flights now scheduled for Sept/Oct 2004 :rolleyes:

Amazing! I can't find anything on the net regarding the press release. Their website hasn't been updated. Anybody got a link?

the eujet website is now live http://www.eujet.com

So it is excellent! :D
Wow! EDI-MSE is devilishly cheap! £7! :ok:

Kent local news story.

Budget flights boost for airport


Kent County County is investing money in the new services
Plans to fly to 21 destinations from Manston Airport in Kent have been announced by a budget airline operator.
Irish airline company EUjet first mooted plans to use the airport as its hub in the UK in February.

Now it has outlined proposals to fly business routes to places such as Madrid and Milan with leisure flights going to Prague, Geneva and Toulouse.

Scheduled services are due to start in September with the firm hoping to carry 500,000 passengers in the first year.


'Good deal'

The flights were announced at a launch at county hall in Maidstone.

EUjet Chief Executive, PJ McGoldrick, said: "I think it is the right moment because there is a need regardless of what is happening in other sectors.

"Some airlines are doing very well and some of the Irish airlines are doing very well.

"We have done our costings and th with the current fuel prices we believe we can offer a good deal."

Other business route destinations include Manchester, Edinburgh and Copenhagen.

Malaga, Jersey, Zurich, Turin and Salzburg are some of the leisure destinations on offer.

Kent County Council is putting money into the scheme to help boost the Thanet area.





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the website has no links leading to a recruitment section !!

Well, well, well, a local council investing in an airline. That will be controversial. If EU Jet succeed it will be seen as a great investmnet by Kent. If they fail if will be seen as an illegal subsidy. But either way it begs the question as to why it was necessary. If the business plan is so good why does the money of council tax payers need to be pumped into it?

It is also worth contrasting the start-up performance of Thomson Fly at Coventry ( far more modest even though it is part of the largest travel company in the world) with the plans of EUJet. Starting in the autumn does not seem like a good idea. Cash flow is always worse in the winter.

It certainly seems as if this space will be worth watching.

Barcardi walla, the interviews were carried out in Ramsgate last week, for various Manston positions. Try contacting personel direct at Shannon. The contact is a very nice lady by the name of Carole Foley. Hope this helps:p

Just been announced on local news that KCC's contribution for share holding is £100.000, out of KCC's investment fund, money is invested to promote development and jobs in the Thanet area.:confused:

15 flights a day on weekdays with F100s. That's 1500 seats in, 1500 out per day. They will need something like 70% load factor to break even, say 1000 people per day. In autumn and winter, in a sparsely populated part of the UK with a fairly low propensity to travel, that sounds optimistic for a start-up with no public profile at present.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'll give them 9 months, unless that is, they've got backers with huge pockets or have some brilliant tricks up their sleeve.....

Would have thought a Shannon-Manston route would have been useful to rotate aircraft between bases and keep FR and EI honest?

MarkD,

There will be, but it will operate via DUB, so not much use really. It's not being sold as such on their site yet either.

I find it very odd that EU jet have not scheduled any possibilities on most of the planned routes for day round trip passengers. Dublin might be a possibility but obvious ones like GLA and EDI are impossible. This will exclude the businees element form its customer base. As Easy and Ryan have found scheduling to get the businness element, particularly at short notice is a vital part of their yield management practices.

I strongly suspect that EU would be far better off getting a small number of routes right to start with ( as Easy did) rather than start so many routes. It all looks rather high risk. But they have presumably calculated that flying all those F100's will be better than not flying them. We shall see.

It is possible at EDI becuase MSE-EDI is going to be twice daily on weekdays.

Just tried their website www.eujet.com - but it seems to have disappeared !! Hope it's not gone the same way as freshaer and flyjetgreen or whatever it was called. !!! Probably just a glitch or a technical fault.

I'm not sure about how popular MSE - DUB will be. I think when I looked at the times for that route earlier this week it was departing MSE at 6.15 am !! Cannot imagine too many in Ramsgate wanting to get to DUB that early and there are better options at present from LGW, STN and LHR. With no reliable public transport and having to depend on taxis I'd safely say any of the other London airports would be cheaper (if you included getting to/from the airport even if the seats are a bit dearer with EI or BA or even FR.

PJ mCGoldrick has plenty of experience in this business - I hope he has got it right.

The website is alive and kicking !

So it is. Just tried it, and guess what ? No Amex cards accepted. I heard Amex are the only card issuer, who won't let the airline charge the cardholder well ahead of the travel date.

Anyway, why should an airline be sitting on customers money anything up to 6 or more months before the travel date ? It makes the airline appear 'cash rich' and hides the true financial picture. For recent examples see Duo, see Jetmagic, see Jetgreen, see ......

If McGoldrick's track record is anything to go by (see Transaer...) then I for one would want to use an Amex card.

To be sure !!!! ;)

CG

LGS6753,

You have summed it up well.

With both EZY and RYR suffering a drop in yields because of the aggressive response from the market, coming into an oversaturated area, operating from a poorly served airport is a recipe for financial disaster. Their average fares will have to be below those of EZY and RYR to tempt people away from the main airports, unless they plan to appeal solely to residents of Ramsgate and it's environs.

Why on earth does anyone think there's still money to be made in this market?

jmc-man think we've been here before don't you ? Remember that so-called 2nd generation low cost airline at LTN called NOW which as it it turned out, should have been called NEVERFLY :rolleyes:

Could it be that Eujet willl not accept Amex because they charge them a higher % than other card issuers.

My experience has been that Amex are at about double what other card companies charge, so there is a reluctance to accept their cards. Eujet therefore are not the only operator I have dealt with who do not accept Amex due to their charges.

As for your comparrison with other named carriers who have recently gone to the wall, surely you should also mention those still operating, you do after all get protection from credit card operators if anything goes wrong.

All airlines "sit" on money paid by passengers in advance of their travel, I think you will also find that the IT operators also offer a discount if you pay early. Why because it earns inerest for them and assists cash flow.

Yes you do get protection form the card company, or do you? Will the FlyJetGreen punters be able to recover anything ?

My comment about NOW or NEVER, is aimed at merely pointing out that I hope EUJET don't end up like them - a non starter. I know they are already a fairly well established ACMI carrier, but there is a big difference between the 2 kinds of operations. This new venture will see them out in the open fields, alone and defending themselves against the likes of EZY and RYR.

With ACMI flying, most of the costs are covered by the client carrier so less of a risk.

While on that subject, the severe reduction in UK based ACMI carriers leaves a gap surely waiting to be filled? Will EUJET still carry on with ACMI work when they start their low cost operation?

The Jeremiahs are off again.

Amex is a ludicrously expensive charge card: why anyone uses it I don't know. I certainly don't accept them in my business.

I live near Manston, and used to travel to Luton (as well as the BAA airports) for flights. The MSE catchment area, if there is such a thing, extends way beyond Ramsgate, and Kent is a major destination. In east Kent we have the coast, Canterbury, Dover Cruise Terminal, countless language schools etc.

What is happening is the development of new markets, in addition to the switch from other airlines. My company is bidding for work in Dublin. If we are successful, I can fly and get a full day's work in with no hotel costs. Over a year this saves a lot of time and money. I shall be visiting Manchester by air rather than the train as at present.

It is clear that bookings are doing well, as a lot of prices are starting to creep up.

What the f*** is the Dover Cruise Terminal

Disagree

We have Visa, MC and Amex. They all charge roughly the same.
But as I said earlier, Amex won't entertain the loco practice of charging the cardholder six months before the flight takes place,
effectively sitting on the pax's money for all that time. Because if the airline goes belly up, the card issuer has to foot the bill for six month's worth of bookings (as cardholders would seek refunds from the card issuer). So start-up locos are not a good risk for credit card companies.

CG

FYI 'duo' accepted AMEX (and AMEX accepted 'duo'!). And they do charge a higher fee.

Dover Cruise Terminal is a place where big floaty things dock

does anyone know how bookings are doing?

any-one had a job offer yet?

Saturday 29/5/04 Daily Telegraph Travel Section

Holiday makers looking beyond the summer to an autumn city break can take advantage of the low fares being offered by a new airline, EUjet. In September the Shannon-based airline will launch the first wave of its services from Kent to 29 European destinations – and on seven of nine routes we surveyed, its fares were the cheapest.
EUjet may prove a threat to EasyJet and Ryanair, which have traditionally had a strangle hold on the no frills market in the south east. At just over 70 miles from London, Kent International airport in Manston presents a realistic alternative to Stansted and Luton for holidaymakers living in and around the capital, EUjets Chief Executive P J McGoldrick, formally head of Ryanair, forcasts that the airline will carry 500,000 passengers in its first year of operation from Manston.
On all nine of the routes surveyed, EUjets return fares cost less than £50 including taxes. Its £28.78 ticket to Amsterdam on the opening weekend of the service (September 3-6) is the cheapest. The most expensive is £47.88 for a return to Copenhagen – still £5 cheaper than EasyJet`s equivalent fare from Luton, half the price of BA`s from Gatwick and one sixth of BMI`s from Heathrow.
EUjets services to Madrid, Edinburgh and Milan begin a month later. On the opening weekend October 8-11 its £39.65 return to Madrid represents a saving of more than £26 on EasyJets equivalent fare from Luton, £55 on BA from Gatwick and £70 on BMI`s from Heathrow. EUjet was undercut on two routes – to Dublin and Milan.
Many of the savings made can be attributed to lower taxes on flights from Kent.
Passengers flying to Girona with Ryanair from Stansted pay £22 in taxes, while those travelling with EUjet pay £16.
Savings will also be made at the airport, where parking is cheaper. For example, leaving a car for a week at Kent International costs £20, compared with more than £50 at Stansted , Luton and Gatwick and £76 at Heathrow.
EUjet will also be operating services by the end of the year to Manchester, Glasgow, Palma, Malaga, Jersey, Murcia, Faro, Geneva, Zurich, Salzburg, Turin and Toulouse.

Serko,

Nice bit of PR - getting to all these destinations as cheap as they say will be very nice - the trick will be getting home again - and if the last two Irish start-ups are anything to go by (Freshaer and FlyJetGreen) any intending PAX would be advised to bring some details of the dearer rivals with them - just in case. At least they have a proven record of getting you home.

I wonder how bookings are going.

C'mon guys - who the hell drives from deepest Kent to catch a plane at Luton??

And whilst Manston & EuJet may well dent some of the market share at Gatwick and perhaps also, to a lesser extent at Stansted, frankly, nobody's going to drive down to Kent Intl from north or northwest London just to save £5 on the airfare and £10 on car parking!

Nevertheless, what a vote of confidence that Kent County Council has actually invested £100K - instead of seeing the Airport as a source of cash that can be easily milked.

Shame some of the leeches in Luton's Town Council don't have the same vision as the council members in Kent!

Good luck to venture and its far-sighted backers...

:ok:

Highwayman,

OK so we've had two failed start ups. Does that mean every airline that comes from Ireland is doomed by your logic?? That's a funny comment to say the least. We are home base of Europe's largest airline in terms of Pax carried now you know! Also, EUjet have a nice record in getting people home: they've been doing so already for over a year now. Some just cant seem to get it into their heads that this is not still a paper airline: it's been flying for the likes of Air France, Germanwings, Volare, SkyEurope, Flybe etc etc for over a year as well as doing charters.

Might I inform you I have it on excellent authority that bookings are doing absolutely fantastic!

I think that you will find that Luton Borough Council have invested quite a bit in the major infrastructure upgrades of recent times? The people of Luton still own thier airport, TBI and its partners run it as a concession.
http://whipsnade.co.uk/picturelibrar...r_120_wide.jpg

CAP670 there are a number of people who have to use Stansted & Luton to get cheap flights that are still not available from Luton.

A good example of this, are people who travel to Zurich. Following the closure of the LGW route, a lot of people from Kent & the general LGW catchment area have been forced to use Luton for cheap flights. Now Manston will provide an alternative.