Jetnav Air travel

When do we reach saturation point with the low cost airlines?

2007-07-20T09:38:00.000+01:00

Are we getting close to saturation point with some of the routes operated by the low cost carriers (LCC)? It seems that they are having to search further afield for viable new routes, which was originally said not to work with the low cost model. Take Funchal in Madeira as a case in point. Yesterday easyJet announced two new routes from Stansted and Bristol starting in October. Funchal is about 600 miles south west of Portugal, a fairly traditional and you would think mature travel destination that has happily managed with charter flights and the scheduled services by British Airways and TAP from Gatwick and Heathrow respectively. Now there are to be daily flights from Stansted and three times weekly flights from Bristol. These join the new FlyGlobespan services from Aberdeen and Edinburgh which are once weekly. This means potentially 12 planeloads per week, have the sums been done correctly?
What about flights to Krakow, two new routes yesterday from easyJet. Now to us Krakow is hardly the season's hot tourist destination but easyJet, Skyeurope, Ryanair, Jet2, Centralwings as well as BA all fly there from the UK, on fifteen different routes. We know there's probably more Polish people visiting and working in the UK than the Government is letting on, but that's a lot of seats to fill.
We've also noticed some of the LCC's are dropping routes. They seem to make a lot less fuss about this than when they announce new routes! More planes are coming on stream and they seem to be scratching around for viable new routes to fly. Load factors and prices are down, the only way out seems to be to fly further, so let's try Tel Aviv (Thomsonfly), Sharm el Sheikh (FlyGlobespan), Funchal (see above), or if you're coming from a slightly different model New York and Bermuda (Zoom).

Virgin Atlantic going forward?

2007-07-10T18:39:00.000+01:00

There has been recent press speculation that Singapore Airlines, one of the largest airlines in the world, is thinking of trying to offload the 49% of the shares that it owns in Virgin Atlantic. Singapore paid around £600m for the stake in Virgin seven years ago which was of course before the airline world was turned upside down by the events of 9/11. Since then there has been some code sharing between the airlines, but nothing much in the way of dividends, and Singapore are perhaps wondering if they could find a better home for the £600m. Trouble is they might have difficulty extracting the cash, Sir Richard Branson has said that he might buy the stake back, but we're not sure he has that much tucked under the mattress.
Another large airline may be interested, but with only 49% and therefore no controlling interest up for grabs, what would be the attraction?
bmi has been mooted as a partner for Virgin several times in the past, but they seem to be ploughing their own furrow quite nicely thank you after acquiring BMED, which we still can't quite believe BA allowed to be sold from under their noses.
Maybe Singapore will try and float their stake but that could prove more difficult than it sounds, perhaps in the meantime they could try and achieve more on the operational front when the Open Skies agreement kicks in.

easyJetholiday.com website

2007-06-28T17:26:00.000+01:00

We see that easyjet has launched a new website, easyJetholiday.com that allows visitors to tie in booking an hotel at the same time as booking an easyJet flight. Not a bad idea you might think for the independent traveller who likes to sort out his own accomodation. Actually it's not a new idea for the low cost airlines, Ryanair and Jet2 for example have accomodation search and booking facilities on their websites and indeed easyJet have the same thing on their main site, so its not exactly a huge leap forwards. It seems you can book the flight and accomodation in one transaction on the new website and there is a map showing the location of the hotels which is quite good. The problem with this site and any other airline's site is that they only show the places that they fly to. The jetnav site gives the independent traveller the complete picture. The routes flown by all the airlines are shown, and hotels can be viewed and prices checked near to all airports, not just the ones served by individual airlines. Jetnav gives you hotels near the departure airport in the UK as well in case an overnight stop is necessary before flying out. Another plus point is that the airport location is shown on the jetnav map as well as the positions of the hotels enabling you to easily get a feel for how far the hotel is from the airport.
Jetnav is the place to start for any traveller wanting to book a flight or accomodation or both.

Open skies not profitable for everyone?

2007-06-22T15:08:00.000+01:00

We reported in our main news article posted on the jetnav site yesterday that one of the new transatlantic services from Liverpool to New York JFK operated by FlyGlobespan is struggling to fill the planes. The number of weekly flights is being reduced, and we notice from the website that the proposed winter schedule that was listed has disappeared. Maybe Liverpool is not the airport to choose for a route from the UK to New York, but when the much vaunted open skies agreement kicks in properly and routes to the US are opened up, how many airlines flying how many routes and at what price will there eventually be?

Winter 07/08 Flights on sale now

2007-06-21T16:38:00.000+01:00

Look out for the new winter flights that are appearing on the jetnav site almost daily now. Jet2 have released their winter schedule which includes new routes to the popular ski airports of Chambery and Geneva that cover the resorts in the Swiss and French Alps. UK departure airports for the Jet2 routes include Belfast, Edinburgh, Leeds Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle, or look at the Chambery airport page for example to see who flys there and when the route starts. FlyGlobespan also offer winter sports flights, mainly from Edinburgh, and they are also offering a range of winter sun destinations such as Las Palmas Gran Canaria, Lanzarote Arrecife, Funchal Madeira, and further afield to places such as Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea and Cape Town in South Africa. easyJet are beginning to announce their winter routes also, they tend to roll out their programme airport by airport so keep checking the site which will be updated as and when the flights are announced

Interactive Google Maps integrated with Jetnav searches

2007-05-02T08:39:00.000+01:00

We’ve always believed that a map based approach is the best way of displaying the information that Jetnav provides. Part of the Jetnav philosophy is to present the site visitor with choices and alternatives when a preferred flight is not available, and maps provide the best way to gauge how convenient an alternative arrival or departure airport might be. Fortunately Netizen Digital who have responsibility for design and development of the Jetnav site have a wealth of experience with mapping solutions and their development team were again called into action. Jetnav is now implementing the incorporation of Google maps into the flight search results.

There are two distinct applications of the maps:
The first relates to when a flight search between two airports gives a blank result. Until now the options were limited to going back to the flight finder page and trying other searches. Now if no flight is listed, a map appears showing all UK airports within 250km of the original choice that operate a route to the selected destination. A single click allows the search to be redone from one of these alternatives. Alternatively you can stick with your original choice of departure airport and view a map of other arrival airports within 250km of your original selection. This can be very useful where a city has more than one airport, or an airline flies to a regional airport a short distance outside the city.
The second application of the maps is on the flight results page where flights have been found and displayed. Below the list of flights is a map centred on the departure airport (or arrival airport if requested) showing the location of hotels and accommodation which may be viewed, checked for availability and booked online. We expect this hotel booking facility in conjunction with the dynamic maps to be popular with businessmen needing to stay overnight near to the airport.
Over the coming months we anticipate adding extra features to the maps with links to companies providing car hire, airport parking and other travel related facilities.

New Summer Timetables

2007-03-22T10:42:00.000Z

This coming weekend is a busy one for anybody involved with flight schedules. The winter timetable changes over to the new summer season and scores of new routes start up and the winter sun routes start to close down. Planes get shifted around the globe, and flight crews face upheaval until they settle in to the new routine. Jetnav has the latest information on who flies where on their airport route & info pages. Large airlines, small airlines, flag carriers or low cost operators, the route information is all there for anyone flying out of the UK. As has been mentioned before, airlines are great at promoting new routes but poor at flagging up routes they are dropping, so if you see a route on the website that you think is wrong or missing, then drop us a line at info@jetnav.co.uk we'll be most grateful.

FlyBE and BA Connect

2007-03-08T12:29:00.000Z

I think the sale of the BA Connect business will have major implications for the UK aviation industry and particularly our national flag carrier.
BA has turned itself into a virtually wholly London based operation. Its hanging on grimly to its valuable Heathrow slots but these are under attack via the supposed EU/American open skies agreement. Its no wonder BA keeps putting forward reasons why the open sky talks should fail. Outside of London it still sells flights on its website but these are mainly operated by franchise partners such as GB Airways and Loganair with their planes and staff kitted out in BA livery. BA has allowed one of its franchise partners BMED to be bought by its rival bmi, so losing access to a number of medium and long haul destinations as well as London airport slots.
BA was losing money with BA Connect and judging from the number of routes being shelved by the new owner FlyBE, particularly from Bristol, they saw no prospect of turning them round in the near future. It will be interesting to see if any of the more aggressively "no frills" airlines fancy their chances on the dumped routes. The destinations that have gone can be loosely described as business destinations such as Munich, Zurich, Milan Malpensa, Geneva, Lyon Satolas and Madrid, so maybe easyJet with one eye cocked to the business sector will have a look. EasyJet were already competitors on the Bristol to Milan Malpensa route for example and of course Geneva is one of their hubs.
Maybe it's the way forward for BA, cut your short term losses and rely on code shares and alliances, but maybe it's not. As usual time will tell.
As usual jetnav.co.uk keeps you up do date with the latest flight and route availability information.

Flight Schedules that change

2007-01-31T18:05:00.000Z

It would be nice if flight schedules were cast in stone, fixed months in advance, and almost never changing. Of course we live in the real world; money, politics, natural events all conspire to mess up the airlines' best laid plans. Here at jetnav we try and keep up with the changes as best we can, we are constantly updating the flight database, and although we have our feelers out for all that's happening in the world of air transportation, occasionally things slip under the radar. Airlines are quite good at advising of new routes, but they never seem keen to let us know about a service that they're dropping. If anyone out there spots a route that we don't know about, or finds that an advertised route has become defunct, then please let us know. A short email to info@jetnav.co.uk should do the trick, and we'll be very grateful. Of course if you've any other gripes or observations, drop us a line and we'll take them on board and get back to you if you want us to.

Jetnav and Google Maps

2007-01-13T19:18:00.000Z

Jetnav has implemented the first phase of incorporating Google maps into the flight search results. This first phase relates to when a search for a flight between two airports gives a blank result. Until now the options were limited to going back to the flight finder page to try another search, or going to another site to check out if a charter flight was available. Now if no flight is listed, a map appears which shows UK airports within 250km of the original choice that operate a route to the requested destination. A single click enables the search to be redone from one of these alternative airports. If your original search was confined to direct flights only, indirect flights can be viewed with one click.
Also there is an option to go directly to the airport information page which will show which airline is operating the route.
Alternatively you can stick with your original choice of departure airport and view a map showing destination airports within 250km of your original choice, with the option to redo the search to one of these alternatives etc. This can be useful where a city has several alternative airports for example Milan, or where an airline flies to a regional airport nearby, for example Ryanair to Girona rather than Barcelona.
We hope to be rolling out other Google map applications over the next couple of months.

New Route Information

2006-12-21T21:44:00.000Z

Jetnav has just launched new information pages about airports abroad that are served directly from the UK. Up until now you could access route information out of any UK airport using the relevant UK airport information page, now you can access the (destination) airport page that you want to fly to around the world and jetnav will tell you which airports in the UK operate a direct route there. Simply visit the airport routes and info page, select the country you are interested in, choose an airport, and the available routes out of the UK will be shown.

New Winter Destinations

2006-12-15T15:21:00.000Z

This weekend (16/17 December) sees the start of most of the new winter sports routes . The most popular destination airports are Chambery, Geneva, Lyon St Geoirs Grenoble and Salzburg but there are several others, and jetnav gives you full information about route start dates, airlines who fly there, as well as some information about the airport itself . See the relevant airport information page. Of course having checked out the route the flight finder page will give you the exact flight timings, flight numbers etc. When you find a suitable flight just click on the link to the airline and make the booking! - it's as simple as that.

News items added as they occur.

2006-11-20T15:13:00.000Z

Keep up to date with what's happening in the world of air travel by reading our news items. They're posted on the jetnav site daily and give all the latest information on new routes and commercial developments in the air industry. Latest news is at the bottom of the home page, older items are archived for reference later.

Problems with outbound flight schedules

2006-11-10T11:22:00.000Z

One or two customers have reported a problem to us about the validity of the flight search for outward flights (return flights were unaffected) on the jetnav flight finder search, some of the flights were missing, or showed up when they shouldn't have done. It was one of those tricky ones that was difficult to pin down, as it was only intermittent, but we think we've cracked it. If you are unhappy with the accuracy of any data from jetnav, please let us know, we will reply on an individual basis. Send us an e-mail at info@jetnav.co.uk

Winter Flight Schedules

2006-11-01T16:11:00.000Z

Now is the time that the airlines and airports switch from their summer schedules to the new winter timetable. The european seaside routes get dropped and winter sun routes such as the Canary Islands kick in. The winter sports routes usually start up a little later. Jetnav keeps you updated with the changes as they are announced, if you want to check out which airports in the UK fly directly to which destinations then click here.

What is airline code sharing?

2006-10-28T15:13:00.000+01:00

We see the term code sharing when applied to flights, what does it mean?
If airline A operates a flight on a certain route, then another airline, say airline B can sell seats on the same flight under a code sharing arrangement. Airline B will usually issue its own flight number and sometimes may not declare that it is not the one actually operating the flight. So you may see on the jetnav flight results, or on perhaps an airport departure board two apparently identical flight timings to the same destination, but there will be only one physical aeroplane.
Why do airlines do it?
Quite simply they are able to offer a wider range of destinations without having to commit the physical resources. It can suit both large and small airlines. The large airline perhaps operates an intercontinental flight to a major airport. A smaller airline based at that airport can then offer a range of flights that tie in with the intercontinental flight. The larger airline can fill its intercontinental flight and gain some revenue from the seats sold on the smaller airlines flights, the smaller airline uses the passengers from the intercontinental flight to fill its flights to the passengers final destinations. It can work well if the airlines choose their partners carefully and there isn't too much route overlap. This is the basis of the major alliances such as Star Alliance and Oneworld. On the jetnav website we have used an asterisk * to indicate which airline is the route operator and which is the code sharer.

What if there are no flight results on the search?

2006-09-11T16:50:00.000+01:00

We get asked the question "What if there are no flight results on the jetnav search?" This mainly occurs when the Direct Flights Only box is ticked.
There may be several reasons why no results appear:
Firstly and most obviously, nobody flies the route. If that's the case then check out another airport pairing. It's easy to do from the results page - if you want to check on the same destination, date etc., but flying from a different airport in the UK, then Jetnav lists nearby alternatives, so with one click you can try another search.
If you think the route is one that actually does operate, but the result for your search is blank, then by accessing the Airport Information pages on the jetnav site and selecting the UK airport you want to fly from, all the scheduled destinations are shown. If your destination is shown then the service may not be a daily one, so either reselect to search on a different date, or using the link provided to the website of the airline flying the route, check out their flight schedules. Some routes shown may operate on a seasonal basis, low cost carriers in particular switch their planes from beach destinations in the summer to airports linking to ski resorts in the winter. We are hoping to show the start and finish dates of these seasonal routes on the website shortly.

See what the press think of Jetnav

2006-08-22T19:44:00.000+01:00

Jetnav has received a couple of reviews in the national press.

For the Times Online review visit http://timesonline.typepad.com/online_travel_briefing/2006/06/findtherightfli.html#more

For the Guardian review visit http://travel.guardian.co.uk/saturdaysection/story/0,,1804349,00.html

Improvements to the Jetnav site

2006-08-22T19:34:00.000+01:00

Three small mods have been made to the jetnav site
The flight finder search fields 'remember' the entry that was last input, so a fresh search with only a slight change saves having to laboriously input all the data in all the fields again.
On the flight results page there is now a tool tip decoder for the airport codes that appear as stopovers on indirect flights.
Again on the results page, asterisks are appearing against the flights where 2 or more airlines are operating a code share arrangement. Previously it was only possible to deduce this from their identical timings.

All in all it should help the site visitor

Have you seen the Jetnav website

2006-08-21T19:02:00.000+01:00

This blog is designed to go hand in hand with the jetnav website http://www.jetnav.co.uk , which is a website for independent primarily UK based travellers. The site was launched in May this year and provides a worldwide flight search for all (or nearly all) scheduled airlines. So in one quick search you can look for flights from the big national flag carriers as well as the low cost operators. There's also a section under "Airport Information" that lists a bit about the UK airports, together with the destinations that can be flown direct from them and the airlines flying these routes. New routes that have just been announced are shown in a news section. I hope this blog will be a forum for anybody using the site who has comments or problems they wish to discuss.