Those people that moved to France and commute are just about to hear a bombshell, our friends Ryanair who have been serving our local airports for years and years have just pulled out. Bang. No emails to those already booked, nothing, just pulled the plug. Ryanair stopped flying to La Rochelle, Nantes and Angouleme outside summer season.
So my parents who have booked in November and December, will “get a refund”, yet have not, at the time of writing even had en email confirming the route closure. Nor does it mention this anywhere on any other site as far as I can see.
I have confirmed with la Rochelle airport that Ryanair are no longer flying there between November and April nor are they flying to Nantes or Angouleme. The only airport they are going to fly to is Poitiers “out of season”. So those packed flights I have travelled on from La Rochelle to Stansted all year have clearly not been making any money. Yes, packed flights.
I have looked into it and I can get a train to Poitiers or even drive which is two hours each way or jump the train to Bordeaux..how about the rest of the regular commuters, what do you intend doing? What about the thousands of gites and small businesses in the region that rely on the English tourism?
I am shocked and wonder if this route cancellation will mean we will have to move back to Blighty or to the USA..
UPDATE: I have since found out that Ryanair are letting 850 people go from their operations and a travel insider has emailed me to tell me that Ryanair are in so much financial trouble they could be going bust. This is an unconfirmed rumour but would make a little sense as to why they are scrapping very busy flights.
Ryanair No Longer To Fly To La Rochelle, Nantes Or Angouleme Out Of Season http://tinyurl.com/ol6k3d
Ryanair No Longer To Fly To La Rochelle, Nantes Or Angouleme Out Of Season http://tinyurl.com/ol6k3d
Ryanair No Longer To Fly To La Rochelle, Nantes Or Angouleme Out Of Season http://tinyurl.com/ol6k3d
Ryanair No Longer To Fly To La Rochelle, Nantes Or Angouleme Out Of Season http://tinyurl.com/ol6k3d
I’ll have something to say if you move to the USA ……… quite loudly actually …….
I think I may have something to say if we had to move to the Sates! Ryanair don’t fly there do they?
You tell ‘im Sylvie ……. ridiculous idea …….
…… where are the Sates BTW?
The Ryanair ‘business model’ is heavily built on provincial towns providing massive subsidies to the company to ferry tourists in. I wonder if the good burghers of La Rochelle and Nantes have had enough of this form of blackmail, hence the decision to pull out?
I had a feeling something like this was coming after the debarcle we all suffered during last year’s winter schedule. I’m lucky that I’m equidistand from La Rochelle and Bordeaux so I’ve switched to easyJey (fingers crossed they don’t do the same thing!) and BA into there from Oct onwards. Poitiers is an option but at 2hrs drive each way it’s a real PITA, so I tend to use it only in emergencies.
Tried the train to Angouleme last winter – would have been OK if not for the fire in the tunnel (added 2hrs to timetable due to limited trains), but it’s just so bl**dy expensive!
We looked into trying to start a commuter-based travel club to lease a plane (www.commuterjet.net) – it’s not out of the question but unless there are enough members of the club willing to pay it still remains prohibitivly expensive.
Happy travels,
John
Hi John
I have submitted a request and is with the Easyjet Marketing team to run the La Rochelle route off season – if we can spread the word and get a load of people to comment on here, it may work. Failing that, the lease option could work, A leaflet in LR airport to see who is interested perhaps?
I do seriously think that a ‘milk run’ type of service (say from a UK airport to Poitiers, then bounching to La Rochelle and/or vice versa) could be a possibility, but only with a level of subsidy from the local Chambers of Commerce (although on a far smaller scale to Ryanair). With all these things, the biggest problem is getting the buy-in of those travelling as it needs a level of up-front commitment greater than just booking 3 months ahead with the lo-costs.
Strange you mention about easyJet, we discussed doing exactly that so will make sure that we send off a few more emails to support the cause – the only issue I can see is that it would potentially clash with their LTN-BOD route.
Still, rumour has it that the Isrish Sky-Pirates will now be running a tues/thurs La Rochelle service from Dec 1st – not much good for them but at the the Chamber of Commerce seem to have had a limited success.
I’ve just come across this during a quest to find out why there are no easyjet flights from Bristol to La Rochelle as of last wknd? no explanation to be found on their site, so i’m assuming it’s the same kind of off season problem. Any previous posters have luck in the last year searching for an affordable option?