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Monarch withdraws Manchester service - and blames Gibraltar government
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by PANORAMA reporter
Gibraltar's air link with the north of England is coming to an end, as Monarch confirms that it is withdrawing its Manchester flights. And it blames the Gibraltar government for not addressing the issue.
There has been talk in the local travel industry for several weeks that Monarch was planning a move given increasing costs to fly to Gibraltar, with landing charges having been increased by the MOD - and with promises of more to come.
When we first contacted them, the airline said that they were working on the winter schedules, suggesting that no firm decisions had been taken at the time.
The four-times weekly service will end on 19th July 2006 - terminating Gibraltar's only direct link to the North of England.
In a statement, Monarch said it blames the Government of Gibraltar for failing to put forward any proposals which would have reduced the high cost of operating to the Rock.
"DITHERING"
On the decision, Monarch's scheduled services Managing Director Tim Jeans said:
"We've been endeavouring to persuade the Government of Gibraltar to address the issue of costs since September last year and absolutely nothing has been done. There have been plenty of warm words and promises of 'meetings' - but all that has happened is that costs have risen, and are set to rise further. Quite how the Government of Gibraltar can expect to share the benefits of low cost access when all it does is procrastinate and dither is beyond me."
Monarch will re-deploy the aircraft used on the route to increase services to Malaga and Palma, and is keen to stress that its daily service to London Luton is unaffected by the decision to end Manchester services.
THE COST FACTOR
Airlines always point at the high landing fees in Gibraltar compared to other places. The difference is that the Gibraltar airfield is military while in other places they may be civilian.
At present, the average landing fee here is just under ?1,300, but it's just ?300 to Malaga.
Unless load factors are high, costs escalate as other charges have a snowball effect.
*GB airways used to fly to Manchester some time ago and was to withdraw from that service.
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