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  • 3 weeks later...
Or check on the airport's own web page http://www.beziers.cci.fr/2-13026-Accueil.php, which, incidentally, has some pictures of what are clearly Ryanair aircraft. Latest news is that the airport has received a licence from the French civil aviation authorities to operate international flights and has the necessary infrastructure (presumably meaning a booth for a passport checker and customs official).
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Talked to those in 'the know' the other day about this.

Apparently Beziers hasn't had anyone come forward in the shape of Ryanair or Easy Jet etc ... mainly because of Montpellier airport being 35kms away ...

They're still looking for lo-costs - peronsally I'd like to see someone new in there - who maybe does flights that Ryanair doesn't ...

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Hi

just worth saying that opening new routes isn't just borrowing an airplane and adding a new destination.

There are considerable costs involved - local staff, airport fees and probably highest, marketing. There was a very high spend by Ryanair when they first launched services to Nimes, and later  Montpellier.

A daily flight has an annual capacity of around 110,000 seats. More accurately, around 9000 per month. Every month winter & summer.  And they must be new customers -  no point in losing business from an existing service ?

So, who are these 110,000 passengers who don't already fly from Montpellier, Nimes, Carcassonne, Marseille, Girona or Perpignan ?

Some points :

The cheap airlines only make money when flights are nearly full.

London Montpellier used to have 3 flights/day in summer, 2/day in winter. Now it is 2 flights per day in summer and 1/day in winter. Where have those passengers gone?

Only a couple of years ago Nimes was down to 1 flight per day in winter, and there was an active campaign to keep the airport open.

To avoid canibalising existing customers, there is very little duplication between Marseille-Nimes, Nimes-Montpellier, etc.

The Marseille flights are just 12 months old. Destinations have been changed twice in a bid to get better sales of the available capacity.

You could argue there are already too many airports, too close together. They are all under an hour from the next one ?

Ryanair already fly to the 8 reachable Languedoc airports from 43 destinations, with a capacity of around 7m seats per year.

 

It would have to be a very compelling business case to invest in new routes to Beziers ?

Buying a property on the basis of current flight schedules may not be a good idea ?

Peter

 

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