Schools out for summer

27.07.2005 As the school summer holiday begins Thomsonfly enters into its third month of flying from Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield. Millions of people are due to travel out of the UK on their annual summer break during July and August, and for the first time this year they will be able to fly from South Yorkshire. Thomsonfly will be flying thousands of passengers from Doncaster to 11 European destinations.

More than 300,000 passengers have already booked flights from the new airport. Since the flights started on April 28 thousands of passengers have already experienced flying with Thomsonfly for a range of travel needs. Customer feedback also shows that a quarter of passengers have flown with Thomsonfly previously with 35% of passengers having flown with the airline four times. Pre-bookable seats and the convenience of Robin Hood Airport are key factors to customers when booking flights.

Thomsonfly’s customer survey shows that the majority of passengers are jetting away for a leisure break, 15% are travelling to visit friends and relatives and the remainder are on business. The most popular routes for business are Paris and Jersey.

The most popular destinations from Robin Hood Airport are Costa Del Sol (Malaga) and Costa Blanca (Alicante), which are typical Spanish holiday destinations with most people staying for one week for July and August, showing that many passengers are using the low fares flights for their annual summer holiday.

71% of the passengers rated their flight experience as excellent, the cabin crew friendliness, professionalism and customer care score very highly, proving that the crew are providing a good quality of service. Results also show that 73% of passengers regard Thomsonfly as good value for money. The airport also rated highly with customers 75% rated the new airport as good or excellent.

Thomsonfly is also flying many international visitors into the region with the majority of inbound customers coming from Paris and Jersey. There are also a high number of ex-UK residents flying in from Spanish destinations such as Alicante, Malaga and Valencia. Thomson Holidays have also experienced great success in selling package holidays, flying from Doncaster to popular destinations such as the Dominican Republic and Cyprus.

Commercial Director of Thomsonfly, Guy Stephenson, said, “The flights throughout the months of July and August are very well sold. The feedback from our customers shows that the people of the surrounding region enjoy having an airline offering flights to great European destinations from their local airport.”

Thomsonfly currently offers flights to 11 European destinations - Jersey, Malaga, Valencia, Alicante, Palma, Ibiza, Paris, Faro, Prague, Dublin and Pisa with prices starting from as little as £15.99 one way, including taxes and charges. The winter schedule has recently been released with the addition of four new routes – Lyon, Amsterdam, Tenerife and Gran Canaria – early bookings figures show that these new destinations are popular with customers.

Thomsonfly.com offers low fare flights from three UK airports – Doncaster, Coventry and Bournemouth, with the benefit of having seats allocated at check-in, avoiding the rush for seats that is often associated with low cost airlines. Customers can pre-book their seats and have the option to book ‘Extra’ seats or add elements to their flight including accommodation, transfers and car hire.

The new Thomsonfly Farefinder on the website displays the cheapest net fares - enabling the flexible traveller to find the lowest fares easily. The best fare that is currently available is 99 pence on the Doncaster to Dublin route for departures at the beginning of August – excluding taxes and charges.

Flights can be booked here online or by telephone on 0870 1900 737.