Perpignan and Carcassonne airports.

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rhys
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Flights from Ireland Summer 2018

Post by rhys »

Dimitri

I checked with Aer Lingus and they do indeed have some ( very nicely timed midday departures) flights from Dublin to Perpignan, with some seats at Euros 70.

This is in July 2018 and early August.

However, when i tried to check returns from PERP for later in the month of August there didn't seem to be any ~do you know if these will be released later or does the service terminate in early August ?

Whilst writing, do you have any idea when RYANair will release its Cork ~Carcassonne flights for summer 2018 ? Would be useful to know how long before one can compare prices.
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Post by Smiley G »

[quote="dimidu66"]
We are evaluating several options for North of England and we are in talks with several carriers, but I have to admit that Durham Tees Valley is not really part of our targets for the moment, we are trying to get direct links with more obvious cities where our region will be easier to sale like Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh... We could consider more this option if there was a carrier having a strong position in Tees Valley Airport, but Flybe has an extremely limited presence, and Eastern Airways/Loganair don't operated the aircraft type that would correspond to a direct route to Perpignan at a reasonable price.

Liverpool or Manchester would be good as we both come from the North West of England.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Owens88
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Post by Owens88 »

East Midlands Airport has a massive catchment. A 50 towards the Northwest. M42 towards the West Midlands and South West. M1 up and down the country.
4 cities within 30 minutes, plus Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield within 90 minutes........ and 90 minutes to a competing airport.

John
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rhys
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Midlands already catered for

Post by rhys »

Ryanair already does MAN CARCassonne ~ at least this year anyway.

The need for a NorthEast airport connection is much greater than for East Midlands ~ those living in the latter's catchment don't have far to travel to get to Birmingham.

Whereas if you are between Leeds and Newcastle it is a long traipse.
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Post by Owens88 »

Rhys you may well be correct but I was describing the potential market. A Jet 2 service to Perpignan (or a Flybe) would be good competition to Ryanair (Birmingham) and would serve a very large market.

However the problem we all really have is that there are too many French airports. That is convenient at the French end but dissipate demand.
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rogb
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Post by rogb »

Dimidu, very good to see mention of Edinburgh for possible flights to or from Carcassonne (there were summer flights a few years ago) and Perpignan. Flights between Beziers and Edinburgh this summer seem to have been full every time we have travelled, and some of this is due to a strong flow of French tourists to Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands, a pattern that seems likely to continue.
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Helen
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Post by Helen »

rogb, there are flights from Edinburgh to Carcassonne starting October 31st, operating twice a week, right through the winter.

Can't say I'm keen on a 06.25 take-off time - but it's great that there will be a direct flight from Scotland to the Languedoc this winter.
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Post by rogb »

Thanks, Helen, I overlooked the re-start of the Edinburgh service. Very good news indeed.

Does anyone know whether there's lots of long-term parking currently available at Carcassonne airport? There was construction work going on last time I was there.
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sue and paul
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Post by sue and paul »

Parking at Carcassonne is fine, but wear decent shoes as it is quite a stride in a long thin carpark. As for cost - not bad. We paid 56€ this week for 10 days parking. And use the loo in the plane if necessary before landing at Carcassonne as there isn't one in the temporary arrivals portacabin. You can traipse back to the terminal or use the "entre deux portes" method ;-)
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Navette at Carcassonne airport

Post by gleber »

We have not used Carcassonne Airport for a few years and wonder if the Navette still runs to the railway station. If not does anyone know how much the taxi fair is now? Our flight is in November.

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Helen
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Post by Helen »

It's a couple of years since I used the navette to/from Carcassonne airport and the city centre, but looking at the airport website it looks as if it's still running.

http://www.aeroport-carcassonne.com/navettes.html
dimidu66
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Post by dimidu66 »

Dear All,

I will try to give an answer to everyone :

@kenny : Aer Lingus is already operating with success our Dublin-Perpignan service and it would not be very fair for them if we try to attract a strong competitor to operate the same service while we're very happy by our current partnership with Aer Lingus established since 2011. We usually try to have only one carrier per route unless the market is so big that we could add another carrier on a secondary airport of an already served city like London with Ryanair operating from Stansted and Flybe operating from Southend.

@rhys : Leeds Bradford is of course a target that we strongly have in mind, especially thanks to the rugby traffic in link with Super League games. We have the choice between Manchester & Leeds airport, but it's very hard to find a carrier for one of these routes. The competition is very strong especially on Manchester (flights with Ryanair from Béziers, Carcassonne & Girona) Jet2 also operate from Girona. While the competition on Leeds only come from Girona (Ryanair/Jet2) as it seems that Ryanair will cancel its peak service from Montpellier to Leeds next year. Newcastle is a less obvious option for us, but we definitely couldn't rely on the French potential to fill the planes. On a UK-French route, you will have most of the time at least 70% of passengers from UK and in the best cases 30% of French travelers, but it's very rare. The French potential is more benefiting to London area of course, but also Scotland, many French people are attracted by that side as well. When I look the load factor of the 1st flight from Carcassonne to Edinburgh on October 31st for example, the aircraft is more filled from Carcassonne than from Edinburgh.

@BT : yes I've seen it! Surprising to see a very early departure from Dublin each Saturday, but I hope it will allow them to sell connecting flights from Perpignan to New-York, Los Angeles, Boston... then if you look at the other days it's almost like this summer. Only the Wednesday flights in July/August will be in end of afternoon and people should be able to book them in the next few days. Only flights on Tue/Thu/Sat/Sun can be currently booked.

@rhys : Yes, the system is not showing the flights for the full month of August 2018 yet, but if you check again in the next 2 weeks you will be able to check the prices for all flights in August. I think the reason is because their system only allow bookings up to 11 months before the departure date.

@Smiley G : yes LBA & MAN are the 2 next big targets for us. We are targeting one of them but we would not encourage carriers to operate both of them at the same time, we would wait at least 2/3 years to see how the first one behave before considering to convince an airline for the second one.

@Owens88 : East Midlands is already operated from Carcassonne, and I have to say that the performances have decreased compared to last year. In result of that, we are lucky that Ryanair will not cancel the route, but they will reduce the service to 2 flights/week instead of 3 flights/week this summer. Let's hope that the load factors will increase very well for Ryanair to consider the 3rd weekly frequency again in Summer 2019... Time will tell.

@rogb/HELEN : thanks Helen for the information about Carcassonne-Edinburgh flights! The route will start from October 31st with 2 flights/week (Tuesday/Saturday) and you can already book the flights until October 27th 2018! You have asked us a direct service to Scotland year-round, we hope that you will now :wink: use it even if it's not from Perpignan, but Carcassonne is still close with affordable parking rates and 3 parkings now depending on the length of your stay. The airport is currently under renovation and a brand new terminal will be built soon....

@gleber : hello gleber, welcome on the forum and thanks for your interest about Carcassonne airport! The shuttle service from the airport to the train station is still running. The shuttle leaves from the airport 30 minutes after each flight landing and bringing you to the train station for 5€ per person.
rhys
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shuttle

Post by rhys »

Thanks for the info..

Re the shuttle bus.

V convenient and quick to the Gare SNCF.

I would mention though that just this monday there were considerable delays at passport check ( coming from MAN ). I only just caught it. And there were a few people still within the building as the bus pulled out..... I wonder if the driver could be asked to check at the terminal that there is no one left who needs the Navette ?

Just a thought........ I did not notice if there were taxis hanging around if one were to miss the bus.

R

ps - on Monday the portacabin loos were working.
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Post by dimidu66 »

Dear All,

I hope you're keeping well. This message is intended to anybody interested by a direct service from Manchester/Liverpool area to Perpignan.

It's a big chance we have and we need your full support! We have approached Blue Air for a direct Perpignan-Liverpool service for next summer, that could serve Manchester area and also the needs of travel of Super League fans watching games in Perpignan. Blue Air is asking for recommendations to chose their new route from Liverpool and it's our chance now, but will you follow us???

It's maybe a sign, you will see that the creative on the following link is representing a heart, which lower tip is passing just by Perpignan :-)

Please submit your recommendations via this link, and help us to get this direct service from Perpignan!!! We are counting on you, and please pass the info to anybody interested.

https://www.blueairweb.com/en/gb/come-f ... -us-where/


With best regards,
Dimitri
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Perpignan and Carcassone airport

Post by hamyat »

Survey completed; I do hope you are successful.
martyn94
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Re: Perpignan and Carcassone airport

Post by martyn94 »

hamyat wrote:Survey completed; I do hope you are successful.


I can understand the appeal of flights from Liverpool to Perpignan. But how are you going to fill the flights going back?
dimidu66
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Post by dimidu66 »

Dear All,

These are the last days to complete the survey proposed by Blue Air. This message is intended to anybody interested by a direct service from Manchester/Liverpool area to Perpignan.

It's a big chance we have and we need your full support! We have approached Blue Air for a direct Perpignan-Liverpool service for next summer, that could serve Manchester area and also the needs of travel of Super League fans watching games in Perpignan. Blue Air is asking for recommendations to chose their new route from Liverpool and it's our chance now, but will you follow us???

It's maybe a sign, you will see that the creative on the following link is representing a heart, which lower tip is passing just over Perpignan :)

Please submit your recommendations via this link, and help us to get this direct service from Perpignan!!! We are counting on you, and please pass the info to anybody interested.

https://www.blueairweb.com/en/gb/come-f ... -us-where/


With best regards,
Dimitri

@martyn94 : for this kind of route, it would be exactly the same than Birmingham or Dublin for example, we would expect a ratio of 75% travelers from UK and more/less 25% of travelers from France. Then you have the potential linked to the Super Leagues and French fans could be numerous to watch games in UK if an easy and affordable link is offered.
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Post by tia »

Would it not be a good idea to try and get one company to fly to the UK from Perpignan all year round rather than trying to find more compagnies to fly here in the summer? Flights are very limited from the end of October. We basically have the choice of Carcassonne or going to Toulouse or Barcelona.
martyn94
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Post by martyn94 »

tia wrote:Would it not be a good idea to try and get one company to fly to the UK from Perpignan all year round rather than trying to find more compagnies to fly here in the summer? Flights are very limited from the end of October. We basically have the choice of Carcassonne or going to Toulouse or Barcelona.
I imagine that poor old dimidu66 tries to do almost nothing else on a daily basis. But until he can get the Sécu to stump up their share, he may be a bit stuck.
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Post by Owens88 »

Hi Dimitri

Sorry to hear that EMA - Carcassone traffic has fallen.
Perhaps we need one busy route from within the Beziers-Carcassone-Perpignan area to each of : EMA, the NW, The NE, Scotland, Southampton and London? Plus a competitor in the wings on intermittent services bouncing within the mix. e.g. Flybe were recently selling a single ticket Perps to EMA but actually changing at their Southamtion hub.

On a recent trip in September I had the faff of going into Carcassone and hiring a car just to get to Vernet (min 3 day hire) but going back via Gerona . The combination of pricing + difficulty of public transport was just too much for me to use Perpignan.
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Sue
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Post by Sue »

Owens88, as with everyone else you have failed to include the SW. If you think it is a faff getting to Vernet from Perpignan then you should give getting to Devon or Cornwall a go from the UK airports you have mentioned.
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Post by martyn94 »


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Post by George012 »

erpignan is helpful, and as we as a rule lease an auto the opposite side, Stansted is on a par with anyplace to set off from. We by and large visit Northants, Notts, and once in a while Derbyshire, so yes, Birmingham or East Mids would be better now and again, however an all-year administration to one place is OK until further notice.
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sue and paul
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Post by sue and paul »

"We by and large visit Northants, Notts, and once in a while Derbyshire"

...exactly our 3 main locations, George012 !! Are we long lost cousins?
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Post by dimidu66 »

Dear All,

I have the pleasure to confirm a new route from Paris CDG to Perpignan with Air France for next Summer! This is a test for 1 month 1/2 from Monday 16th July until Sunday 2nd September with 5 flights/week (Mon/Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun) allowing 40 destinations via CDG within 3h30 max connecting time (including Edinburgh, Newcastle, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Milan, Rome...)

According to the performances, average rate of connecting passengers... Air France might decide to extend the route with year-round operation, which will for sure benefit to all of you in case of non direct flights to UK in winter from/to Perpignan :) Fingers crossed!!!

P.S. : detail of connecting flights from/to Perpignan via CDG can be seen via the following link --> http://www.lindependant.fr/2018/02/01/a ... 091968.php
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Post by BT »

Progress for Perpignan. Now if you could just get Aer Lingus to extend their flights ...

I do know that you are trying.

Regards

BT
dimidu66
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Post by dimidu66 »

Hi BT,
thanks for your message! It's of course part of our goals, but I believe the necessary step for us to convince Aer Lingus to do so, is to get a few Tour Operators commitment in order to increase the distribution network, notoriety of Perpignan and its seaside resorts with many accomodations that can correspond to the Irish families traveling on the route. The good point is that without such support from the TO, Aer Lingus is still achieving good performances on the route mainly thanks to individual travelers. But having a TO like TUI or some others selling flights + accomodations packages would be a great help for us and I'm sure a strong product for them to add in their brochure ;-)

Best regards,
Dimitri
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sue and paul
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Post by sue and paul »

thanks for your posts dimidu66 and the efforts you are making to improve C'sonne and Perpignan flights. I have sent you a pm
rhys
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flights to Perpignan / Carcassonne direct from England ?

Post by rhys »

So is it possible to summarise please which airports in England will have direct flights this ( 2018 ) summer to Perpignan or Carcassonne ?

( I would imagine the AirFrance flights connecting at CdG would be far more expensive than direct flights. Not to mention all the faffing around changing planes. )
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Post by Kate »

There’s a summary in the spring P-O Life which you can download from home page site if you don’t have a paper copy...or it will go out in the newsletter next week.
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