FlyBE and BA Connect

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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