They did operate last winter.

I can see LGW getting Air Asia X upon their return to London and as much as I would like to see them return to STN I think LGW will be successful in gaining the Kuala Lumper route.

So after a stint down the road, it looks like AtlasGlobal are back with their schedule to IST from the 31st October :ok:

It's a good win from its Bedfordshire neighbour and is what competition from rival airports is all about, as they try to poach each others business.

I am not so sure LTNman traffic to Turkey is way down for obvious reasons, you have only to look at Turkish Airlines reducing there services to the UK and other European countries. Being an old cynic I would suggest the Luton deal has run its course so let's go back to Stansted with a new deal there and compete with Pegasus.

I'm not that familiar with the London-Istanbul market, but there seem to be an awful lot of flights each day on this route. BA, Pegasus and Turkish all seem to fly multiple times per day and have a significant market share and large connecting bases to promote traffic. Atlas Global is a much smaller airline and flies just once per day to London. What is the market Atlas Global are targetting, and are they actually making money on what seems to be a possibly overserved route ? Is there really room in the market right now for a small number 4 airline against 3 big players ?

Northern Cypriot communities in North London as flight goes onto Ercan/Tymvou after the stop in Istanbul.

rutankrd - I'm terribly sorry if I'm being a bit thick, but when I look at schedules for the future, Atlas Global doesn't seem to have a particularly compelling connection via IST between London and Ercan - Pegasus via Izmir seems far more targetted to this connection. Looking on FR24 over the last 7 days, none of the aircraft used by Atlas Global have served Ercan immediately before or after going to/from London - the only route one could argue is being targetted is perhaps London-Trabzon on a few days per week but I imagine immigration requirements rule this out and I've not heard of this being a particularly lucrative market. Is there perhaps something else I'm missing ?

London-Ercan via IST has been a good market for Stansted going back decades and Stansted is best placed of all the London airports geographically for the Turkish Cypriot Community.

This AtlasGlobal move however has the feel of a "last throw of the dice" and I can't see them competing effectively with Pegasus but we shall see.

Neilson is to offer a new charter route to Zadar (Croatia) for S17.
Flights are operated on Sundays using Titan Airways.

You seem to have got Jet2, well done. Interesting times for easy and Ryanair.

It might mean that easyjet eventually leave Stansted once Luton has gained some capacity at the end of next year seeing that they don't seem to have put any effort into growing their business here despite their Stansted agreement.

Interestingly the only tweet about it so far is from 'Madeira Holidays'. So that could be one of the routes right there, and it is currently unserved.

I would think also Thomson and Thomas Cook will be looking over their shoulders as well with Jet2 holidays seemingly doing very well.

Jet2 had little choice if they were looking for a London base - nowhere else has capacity. Also, Jet2 competes with Ryanair from its northern bases, and will employ the same competitive tactics at STN, i.e. selling package holidays rather than lcc flights.
As Compton says above, it's Thomson and Thomas Cook who are under threat here, although they are accustomed to the competition from J2 Holidays elsewhere.

Big thanks to Ryanair for leaving the door open and MOL for throwing his toys out of his pray over Brexit.
I think Jet2 will do very well at STN as Easyjet have gone down hill in so many ways as well as a reduction in A/C just gives us all more options at STN :ok:

Jet2.com
 

As far as I'm aware it maybe a significant number of based aircraft so not a small network by any means... Guess We'll have to wait and see what routes are announced.

Dart Group AGM Statement and Announcement of New UK Base | Jet2.com


Dart Group AGM Statement and Announcement of New UK Base

08th September 2016

At the Company’s Annual General Meeting later today, Philip Meeson, Group Chairman and Chief Executive, will make the following statement:
"The good start to the financial year as reported in our Preliminary Results Statement of 14 July 2016 has continued, with summer Leisure Travel bookings showing no signs of slowdown. Demand for our higher margin package holiday products continues to grow and as a result the number of package holiday customers, as a proportion of total departing customers, is also increasing. Though airline ticket yields and load factors are slightly lower than those achieved in summer 2015, this is against a backdrop of a 13% increase in seat capacity. Leisure Travel bookings for winter 2016/17 are satisfactory at this early stage.
Continued encouraging progress is beingmade at Fowler Welch, our Distribution & Logistics business, which is currently trading in line with expectations.
The Board is also pleased to announce London Stansted Airport as our ninth UK base. We expect to welcome customers on board our holiday flights from this new base in spring 2017. We believe that London Stansted has great potential for our holiday business, serving the populations of North and East London and the East of England.
In view of the significant investment which will be committed in the second half of this financial year to launch our London Stansted and recently announced Birmingham Airport bases, it is likely that Group operating profit will be slightly behind current market expectations despite the good trading performance achieved in the year to date.”
The Group will provide a further update when it announces its interim results for the six months ending 30 September 2016 on 17 November 2016

Anything that dilutes Ryanair's power over Stansted has got to be good for the airport. Little acorns comes to mind:ok:

Luton will see this as a major lost opportunity but they should have started their redevelopment at least a year earlier so now they are reaping the reward due to a lack of capacity.