Manchester to Toulouse-the facts please!!

[Bones]

Loads of posts whingeing about the dearth of cheapish flights to this area of France.

We live near Carcassonne airport and have to travel to Toulouse to allow my stepson visit his dad in Manchester. Problem is his dad has to travel all the way to East Midlands to get here, he and the lad are on a train from there just to spend a week together, and even that's not always possible. Stanstead is great to get to Carcassonne, but it's no good to northerners.

There must be thousands of people near Manchester airport that would snap up cheap flights to this area of France, I know me and my family and friends would.

Perhaps we should plant a few bombs, no, perhaps we should just organise and lobby the budget airlines!! Who's with me? (just don't expect me to do anything except add my name to a list!!)

[Mpprh]

Hi

Have you considered Ryanair Liverpool - Girona or Liverpool - Nimes.

Sure, you have to drive a bit on this side, but it is generally easier to drive here than in UK ?

Here are some other options for flights into Languedoc:

From : To : Carrier :

Amsterdam Toulouse KLM

Belfast City Toulouse Flybe

Birmingham Toulouse Flybe

Blackpool Girona Ryanair

Bournemouth Girona Ryanair

Bristol Toulouse Flybe

Brussels Girona Jetonly

Brussels Toulon Jetonly

Cardiff Toulouse BMIbaby

Charleroi Carcassonne Ryanair

Charleroi Girona Ryanair

Cologne Marseille Hapag LLoyd Express

Coventry Marseille Thomsonfly

Dublin Girona Ryanair

Dublin Toulouse Aer Lingus

East Midlands Airport Girona Ryanair

East Midlands Airport Toulouse BMIbaby

Edinburgh Toulouse KLM

Eindhoven Girona Ryanair

Frankfurt (Hahn) Girona Ryanair

Frankfurt (Hahn) Montpellier Ryanair

Glasgow Prestwick Girona Ryanair

Guernsey Toulouse Flybe

Jersey Toulouse Flybe

Kent International Airport Girona EUjet

Kent International Airport Toulouse EUjet

Liverpool Girona Ryanair

Liverpool Nimes Ryanair

London Gatwick Marseille BA

London Gatwick Marseille Easyjet

London Gatwick Montpellier BA

London Gatwick Toulouse BA

London Gatwick Toulouse Easyjet

London Luton Girona Ryanair

London Luton Nimes Ryanair

London Stansted Carcassonne Ryanair

London Stansted Girona Ryanair

London Stansted Montpellier Ryanair

London Stansted Nimes Ryanair

London Stansted Perpignan Ryanair

London Stansted Rodez Ryanair

London Stansted St Etienne Ryanair

Niederhein-Dusseldorf Girona Ryanair

Paris (Beauvais) Girona Ryanair

Paris Orly Marseille Easyjet

Paris Orly Marseille Air France

Rotterdam Girona Basiqair

Southampton Toulouse Flybe

Stockholm Skavska Girona Ryanair

Various to Barcelona

Page with links here : http://www.the-languedoc-page.com/languedoc-tourism-air.htm

Peter

[David584]

Flybmi operate a scheduled route from Manchester to Toulouse BUT you have to be flexible in respect of your dates of travel to get the lowest prices. I had a quick look at their site and found that for this route, their prices varied between GBP 57.00 and GBP 238.00 and that was just ONE way.

 

[Bones]

All good stuff, and gratefuly received, however I have to repeat:

Why in this new millenium must we good (ex) northerners have to drive for hours and pick our dates (not always possible when kids/jobs are involved) just to get on a giant iron bird, that may well go down, to see our loved ones? (This is not a purely selfish post--I personaly find flying an abhorent experience and would drive to the moon to avoid the infernal things)

I'd love to see the figures relating to people who live within, say, 30 miles of Manchester and 50 miles of Toulouse who regularly travel between these two destinations using budget airlines from anywhere but the north west!

[Ron Avery]

Maybe BMI Baby don't fly Manchester to Toulouse because BMI already do?.  Something about foot and shooting springs to mind

 

At the moment nobody is even sure that Easyjet or BMI baby are flying into Toulouse next summer, which is where we came in.

[Richardbk]

one reason to stick to Toulouse, is that during the foggy or other poor weather conditions of the winter months aircraft can continue to land at Toulouse - Carcassone has no facilities for poor weather landings.  Toulouse, Pau and Bordeaux are the only three airports in the southwest that have the neccessary 'CATIII' landing capability.

I saw recently that BMI cancelled some flights for a few days due to poor weather conditions - this is one of the risks that you should also consider when looking at low cost airlines providing routes to small regional airports.

regs

Richard

[Sashabel]

We live in that 30 mile radius of Manchester Airport that "Bones" mentioned and, along with many friends and family,  would love to see more budget flights to the different regions of France.  The Manchester to Bordeaux route by BMI Baby is much better than travelling down to Stansted for the Ryanair Poitiers flight (Poitiers being much nearer our French house than Bordeaux).  It is just unfortunate that BMI Baby only operate this flight during the summer months.

Manchester Airport is enormous now (Isn't it the third biggest in the country?).  Surely a little space can be found to open up more routes from existing operators such as BMI Baby, Ryanair Flybe and Jet2.

Sasha

[val douest]

There are two new services which might help North Westerners get

to the Toulouse area. They are the Jet2.com (www.jet2.com) three

flights a day each way from Manchester to Gatwick, fares from £15

inc taxes. Both BA and Easyjet fly to Toulouse from Gatwick. The

other option is to fly by Eastern (www.easternairways.com) from

Manchester to Stansted (again three times a day each way). The fares

on this route are not cheap (£95 one way inc taxes) but for an emergency,

special occasion, or if one person is flying and it avoids an over-

night stay and car parking charges, it is worth bearing in mind. From

Stansted of course the world is your oyster - including Pau and

Carcassone depending on whether you want to be east or west of Toulouse.

[Washy]

Well that was a great long list of suggestions from Peter but some of the Brussells/Carcassonne connections are on different days - I have looked into all this to get friends and family from the NW down to us at either Perpignan or Carcassonne.

Toulouse, Montpellier and Nimes are hours (4 hour round trip) away from us in the Haute Corbieres, although I agree the driving is probably easier in France. 

It is difficult trying to persuade older people to get on coaches or trains to Gatwick or Stanstead before they even get on a flight out to France.

Warrington/Birmingham was OK, the trains connected well and went right in to the terminal.

www.Flybe.com had flights last year to Perpignan and also started to use Bristol, now thwy do not know if they will fly to Perpignan at all next year.  If people need these routes then please e-mail Customer Services to express an interest.

 

[Mpprh]

Hi

I'm not sure emails will restore abandoned routes.

It is a cut throat business and only succesful routes survive.

The Southern airports collect customers from SE and Birmingham areas. Maybe the NW customers are just an add on ?

Peter